A Multimodal Analysis Combining Behavioral Experiments and Survey-Based Methods to Assess the Cognitive Effect of Video Game Playing: Good or Evil?

Online Assessment of Social Cognition in a Population of Gamers and Gamblers: Results of the eSMILE Study

The purpose of the eSMILE study was to explore social cognition (SC) in the two behavioural addictions (BAs) included in international classifications: gaming disorder and gambling disorder. In these disorders, cognitive functioning is involved in the development and maintenance of addiction. Nevertheless, SC have received less attention than other cognitive functions. The eSMILE study was conducted online and included 105 participants (gamers and gamblers). This study included: the Penn emotion recognition task, the Condensed and Revised Multifaced Empathy Test, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, the Chicken Game, social metacognition questions, and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. We analysed the relationships among SC measures, addiction levels, and behaviour frequency. For gamers, we showed that the higher their level of addiction was, the lower their self-confidence following the identification of basic emotions, although the more frequently they played, the better their performance on this task. Additionally, we found lower performance on the identification of more complex emotions by gamblers, which seems to be the result of their levels of addiction rather than the frequency of their gambling behaviour. This study contributes to our understanding of the cognitive processes underlying BAs. Additionally, working on SC abilities may be an additional management mode for BAs that could be added to existing treatments.

Application of subject-specific helmets for the study of human visuomotor behavior using transcranial focused ultrasound: a pilot study

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

As a novel non-invasive human brain stimulation method, transcranial focused ultrasound (tFUS) is receiving growing attention due to its superior spatial specificity and depth penetrability. Since the focal point of tFUS needs to be fixated precisely to the target brain region during stimulation, a critical issue is to identify and maintain the accurate position and orientation of the tFUS transducer relative to the subject's head. This study aims to propose the entire framework of tFUS stimulation integrating the methods previously proposed by the authors for tFUS transducer configuration optimization and a subject-specific 3D-printed helmet, and to validate this complete setup in a human behavioral neuromodulation study.

METHODS

To find the optimal configuration of the tFUS transducer, a numerical method based on subject-specific tFUS beamlines simulation was used. Then, the subject-specific 3D-printed helmet has been applied to effectively secure the transducer at the estimated optimal configuration. To validate this tFUS framework, a common behavioral neuromodulation paradigm was chosen; the effect of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) stimulation on anti-saccade (AS) behavior. While human participants (n=2) were performing AS tasks, tFUS stimulations were randomly applied to the left DLPFC right after the fixation target disappeared.

RESULTS

The neuromodulation result strongly suggests that the cortical stimulation using the proposed tFUS setup is effective in significantly reducing the error rates of anti-saccades (about -10 %p for S1 and -16 %p for S2), whereas no significant effect was observed on their latencies. These observed behavioral effects are consistent with the previous results based on conventional brain stimulation or lesion studies.

CONCLUSIONS

The proposed subject-specific tFUS framework has been effectively used in human neuromodulation study. The result suggests that the tFUS stimulation targeted to the DLPFC can generate a neuromodulatory effect on AS behavior.

Abnormal psychological performance as potential marker for high risk of internet gaming disorder: An eye-tracking study and support vector machine analysis

Individuals with high risk of internet gaming disorder (HIGD) showed abnormal psychological performances in response inhibition, impulse control, and emotion regulation, and are considered the high-risk stage of internet gaming disorder (IGD). The identification of this population mainly relies on clinical scales, which are less accurate. This study aimed to explore whether these performances have highly accurate for discriminating HIGD from low-risk ones. Eye tracking based anti-saccade task, Barratt impulsiveness scale (BIS), and Wong and Law emotional intelligence scale (WLEIS) were used to evaluate psychological performances in 57 individuals with HIGD and 52 matched low risk of internet gaming disorder (LIGD). HIGD group showed significantly increased BIS total (t = −2.875, p = 0.005), attention (t = −2.139, p = 0.035), motor (t = −2.017, p = 0.046), and non-planning (t = −2.171, p = 0.032) scores, but significantly decreased WLEIS emotion regulation score (t = 2.636, p = 0.010) and correct rate of eye tracking anti-saccade task (t = 2.294, p = 0.024) compared with LIGD group. BIS total score was negatively correlated with the WLEIS total (r = −0.473, p < 0.001) and WLEIS emotion regulation (r = −0.366, p < 0.001) scores. A combination of the WLEIS emotion regulation score and the correct rate of anti-saccade task could discriminate HIGD from LIGD with 91.23% sensitivity, 82.69% specificity, and 87.16% accuracy. Participants with higher gaming hours daily were 40 times more likely to be high risk than their counterparts (p < 0.001). Hence, psychological performances were worse in HIGD. A combination of abnormal emotion regulation and response inhibition might be a potential marker to identify HIGD individuals.