Blunted neural response to real-life social reward anticipation in internet gaming disorder: An event-related potential study

Abstract

Recent research indicates that individuals with Internet gaming disorder (IGD) exhibit impaired social reward processing, evidenced by reduced neural sensitivity to real-life social reward. The aim of the present study is to further investigate the impaired processing of social reward anticipation and reward consumption in individuals with IGD, and explore the relationship between these two components. Using a social incentive delay task with game-related and real-life versions, combined with event-related potential (ERP) technology, we examined 25 individuals with IGD and 25 matched healthy game players. The results showed that, at the behavioral level, individuals with IGD showed significantly slower reaction times to real-life target stimuli compared with game-related target stimuli, which is not observed in healthy controls. At the neural level, the Cue-P3 elicited by real-life incentive cues in individuals with IGD was significantly smaller than that elicited by game-related incentive cues. However, these effects were no longer significant after adding depression and anxiety scores as covariates. There was no significant difference in reward positivity (RewP) elicited between the two types of reward consumption. Furthermore, individuals with IGD showed a positive correlation between Cue-P3 elicited by game-related social incentive cue and RewP elicited by game-related social reward. However, this effect was not observed in the healthy controls. In conclusion, the present study suggests that the blunted allocation of motivated neural attention resources to real-life social incentive cues in individuals with IGD may be the key mechanism underlying their impaired social reward processing. This impairment may be influenced by the higher levels of depression and anxiety symptoms commonly observed in individuals with IGD.