WEDNESDAY, Jan. 11 (HealthDay News) -- A small Chinese study
suggests that the brains of teenagers who are seemingly addicted to
the Internet have abnormal "white matter," the biological
insulation that surrounds the wiring between neurons.
It's not clear if this difference could cause Internet addiction
or actually be caused
by it. And the research doesn't point to a treatment or cure
for Internet addiction, a controversial diagnosis that the mental
health community hasn't universally accepted.
Still, the research makes sense because of the regions of the
brain in question, said Jonathan Wallis, an associate professor of
psychology and neuroscience at the University of California,
Berkeley, who studies the brain and is familiar with the new
findings.
"The areas that they [the study authors] have pinpointed are ones that we already know are involved in addiction and compulsive behavior," he said. The differences in white matter in the subjects described as Internet addicts is "the kind of impairment that we'd expect to disrupt the normal function of those areas."
The existence of Internet addiction is a widely debated issue in
the world of mental health, especially since the main handbook of
psychological disorders -- the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders -- is undergoing revision. Among other things,
specialists disagree over whether the condition is truly an
addiction or fits into another category.
Internet addiction has been an especially hot topic in China,
where researchers at Jiao Tong University and the Chinese Academy
of Sciences launched the new study.
The researchers gave MRI brain scans to 17 adolescents who
appeared to suffer from Internet addiction. Among other things, the
teens said they were preoccupied with the Internet, had repeatedly
tried to control their use without success, and felt restless,
moody, depressed or irritable when they tried to cut down.
The researchers compared their brain scans to those of 16
"healthy" teens of the same ages and genders.
The scientists found that those teens who appeared to have
Internet addiction had impaired "white matter" connecting the parts
of their brains that deal with issues like decision-making.
White matter refers to the insulation that envelops the wiring
that connects brain cells called neurons, Wallis said. "They're
connected along the biological equivalent of wire. Just like in any
piece of electrical equipment, you want insulation around those
wires. The neurons lay down fat, which stops the electrical charge
from leaking out of the neuron."
So which came first, the damage to the insulation or the
addiction itself? "We don't know whether the poor insulation
connecting these areas of the brain predisposes these people to
developing compulsive behaviors or whether engaging in a behavior
repetitively could damage the connections between brain areas,"
Wallis said.
One possible theory is that the faulty insulation disrupts
communication in the brain to the point where a person thinks a
behavior is valuable and should be repeated over and over again,
Wallis said. That, he added, may be a key to addictions of various
types.
The research offers more insight into how some people may be
more prone to addiction because of the way their brains work, said
Gordon Harris, a professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School
who is studying alcoholism and the brain.
"It's not just a personal failing or weakness," Harris said.
The new study findings appear in the Jan. 11 issue of the
journal
PLoS One.
More information
For details about
addiction medicine, try the U.S. National Library of Medicine.