Internet gambling addiction affects men's brains in a unique way

TThere is a lingering controversy about whether gambling disorder on the internet is a real disease, but scientists who accept it find that it affects men and women differently. At the annual meeting of the North American Radiology Society on Wednesday, researchers showed that the IGD was generally associated with insufficient impulse control, but only in men.

In order for a patient to receive a formal diagnosis of IGD, he must be engaged in the games so as to make him neglect other activities. In the study, led by Dr. Yawen Sun, senior author and diagnostic radiologist at Ren Ji Hospital in Shanghai, researchers performed fMRI in the resting state in men and women. women with or without diagnosis of IGD. These volunteers also took a test designed to measure impulsivity.

Brain analyzes showed that men diagnosed with IGD had differences in cerebral functional connectivity compared to women and the control group. They also had lower activity levels in the upper frontal gyrus, a region of the frontal lobe involved in working memory.

"Our results demonstrated that alterations in brain activity are observed in men with IGD, but not in women with IGD, and that lower brain activity in the Upper frontal gyrus in men with IGD may be associated with higher impulsivity, "Sun said.

But the researchers did not know if this meant that the IGD was actually changing the brain or that some brains were simply predisposed to the IGD.

"However, it is not clear whether the functional and structural changes of the brain found in the IGD are induced by gambling or as precursors of vulnerability," Sun said.

Differences in impulse control between the sexes have already been observed. "Men have shown lower levels of impulse control over women, and their control is also increasing more gradually," says Sun. She points out that the results of the IGD study indicate that this difference between the sexes becomes even more exaggerated in the case of the IGD.

"Given the role of inhibitory control in the initiation of IGD, Sun says, young men tend to experience more pathological use of the Internet than younger women." Determine what is the first factor – IGD or predisposition to the video game problem – will be the key to settling an ongoing debate about the validity of the disease.

On June 18, the World Health Organization officially recognized the IGD as a mental health problem, with enormous consequences for the medical establishment. The WHO International Classification of Diseases decrees what is and is not a real health problem – and, importantly, helps insurers decide what treatments they will cover. Thus, the designation of the IGD as a mental health condition means that for-profit treatment centers could potentially charge insurers for hospital treatment.

Psychologist Anthony Bean, Ph.D., said reverse In June, the WHO had described the decision of the IGD as "premature" as a mental illness. It's not alone: ​​Bean, a clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of gamblers, is part of a small but lively group of psychologists who wonder if presenting problems with video games can actually live with other undiagnosed mental health issues as they are referred to as video game addicts.

"I generally consider games to be a secondary condition for primary depression or anxiety during a therapy session," he said. "And when you work with anxiety or depression, the games go down dramatically." In other words, patients with GI diagnosis can simply use video games to deal with another mental health problem.