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December 11, 2024 – New research has uncovered a potential brain marker that could help identify adolescents at risk of developing gaming addiction. The study, published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, sheds light on the neural factors that contribute to the increasing concern about excessive gaming among teens.
Video gaming has long been a popular pastime for young people, but for some, it may become more than just a hobby. John Foxe, Ph.D., director of the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester and co-author of the study, explains that one of the key issues facing parents today is determining how much gaming is “enough.” “These data begin to give us some answers,” Foxe says.
The research, which spanned four years, tracked the brain activity and gaming behaviors of 6,143 participants aged 10 to 15. Researchers initially conducted brain scans using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as participants performed a simple task to earn a $5 reward. Over the next three years, the participants filled out Video Game Addiction Questionnaires.
The findings were striking: teens who showed more symptoms of gaming addiction displayed lower brain activity in regions responsible for decision-making and reward processing, specifically during the initial brain scan. This diminished response to reward anticipation was similar to what had previously been observed in adult gamers with addiction symptoms. The study suggests that a reduced sensitivity to non-gaming rewards may play a role in the development of gaming addiction.
“Gaming itself is not unhealthy, but there is a line,” says Daniel Lopez, Ph.D., first author of the study. Lopez, a postdoctoral fellow at the Developmental Brain Imaging Lab at Oregon Health & Science University, notes that while it’s difficult to completely restrict gaming, identifying the neural markers of those most susceptible to addiction could help parents find a balance. “We want to know the right balance between healthy gaming and unhealthy gaming, and this research starts to point us in the direction of the neural markers we can use to help us identify who might be at risk of unhealthy gaming behaviors.”
The study is part of the larger Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, a nationwide initiative launched in 2015 to follow the brain development of over 11,000 children from pre-adolescence to adulthood. The ABCD Study collects data on various aspects of adolescent development, including emotional, cognitive, and social well-being. The University of Rochester has been a participant since 2017, and researchers from the university played a key role in this latest discovery.
Ed Freedman, Ph.D., professor of Neuroscience at the University of Rochester and co-principal investigator of the university’s site in the ABCD Study, highlights the transformative impact of the large data set. “The large data set that contains this understudied developmental window is transforming recommendations for everything from sleep to screen time,” Freedman says. “And now we have specific brain regions that are associated with gaming addiction in teens.”
This breakthrough allows researchers to ask crucial questions about identifying at-risk teens and determining whether there are ways to mitigate the risk of unhealthy gaming behaviors. The findings are expected to have global implications for policy and parenting guidelines surrounding screen time and gaming.
John Foxe notes the significant role the study has played in shaping worldwide conversations about adolescent health. “We are already seeing how this data is having a major impact on policy across the world,” he says.
For parents concerned about their children’s gaming habits, this research offers hope for more tailored and informed approaches to managing screen time and preventing gaming addiction.
More information can be found in the study, The Longitudinal Association Between Reward Processing and Symptoms of Video Game Addiction in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions (2024).
