IMR Press / FBE / Volume 9 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.2741/E804

Frontiers in Bioscience-Elite (FBE) is published by IMR Press from Volume 13 Issue 2 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Review

The cognitive dysregulation of Internet addiction and its neurobiological correlates

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1 Department of Psychiatry, SMG-SNU Boramae Medical Center, Seoul, Republic of Korea
2 Department of Psychiatry, Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea
3 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

 

Front. Biosci. (Elite Ed) 2017, 9(2), 307–320; https://doi.org/10.2741/E804
Published: 1 June 2017
Abstract

Individuals with Internet addiction (IA) show loss of control and recurring maladaptive Internet use. This condition has negative consequences and causes significant psychosocial distress. Here, we review neurobiological changes in four key paradigms in cognitive domain in IA including reward processing, impulsivity, cue reactivity, and decision-making. IA is associated with alterations in prefrontal-cingulate region activation during the inhibition of inappropriate responses. Such patterns are also observed in cue-reactivity paradigm tasks, suggesting a relationship with loss of control and deficits in the control of cue-eliciting behavior. Individuals with IA exhibit heightened reward prediction, devalue negative outcomes and have a higher risk-taking propensity under ambiguous situations. In conclusion, addictive use of the Internet is associated with deficits in cognitive-emotional processing, aberrant sensitivity to rewards and Internet-related cues, poor impulse control, and impaired decision-making. There is a need to examine neural underpinnings of these aberrant behaviors and neurobiological-cognitive perspective in IA.

Keywords
Internet addiction
cognitive-emotional
Reward processing
Impulsivity
Cue reactivity
Decision making
Review
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