Effects Of Internet Gaming

One of the first studies that looked at the effects of gaming on the dopaminergic pathway was a study by Koepp and colleagues (1998) that took positron emission topography (PET) scans of eight male participants while they were playing a video game. The authors found that there were greater dopamine increases in the ventral striatum (where the NAc is located) in the experimental condition (playing the video game) than in the control condition (looking at an empty screen). Furthermore, while playing video games, authors found that there was a 13% reduction in the 11C-labelled raclopride ([11C]RAC) binding potential, translating into approximately a 100% increase in extracellular dopamine levels. While the authors were not able to look at neural …show more content…
Although the design of the study was quasi-experimental and thus does not lend to true casual inferences, the study is one of the first to examine effects of Internet gaming addiction over time. Participants were separated into two groups—a group comprised of individuals with excessive Internet playing (i.e., played more than one hour a day) and a control group of individuals with normal Internet use—and were tasked with playing on online action game over a period of six weeks. Participants’ brain activity was examined both before and after the trials during which they were exposed to the cues related to the game. The authors found that there was increased brain activity in the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortex in the group with excessive Internet gaming behaviors after six weeks of the playing the games, but not in the control group when exposed to the game cues. These findings are important and suggest that the brain activity of those with Internet gaming or use problems is different when compared to a control group. Additionally, given that both areas are a part of the dopaminergic reward system, this also suggests that playing excessive games can lead to changes in the dopaminergic pathways over