Gaming disorder: neural mechanisms and ongoing debates

Zheng, Y-B, Zhang, S-N, Tang, H-D, Wang, S-W, Lin, X, Bao, Y-P, Wang, Y-M, Griffiths, MD ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-6524, Sun, J, Han, Y and Lu, L, 2025. Gaming disorder: neural mechanisms and ongoing debates. Journal of Behavioral Addictions. ISSN 2062-5871

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Abstract

Background and aims: The inclusion of gaming disorder as a new diagnosis in the 11th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) has caused ongoing debate. This review aimed to summarise the potential neural mechanisms of gaming disorder and provide additional evidence for this debate.

Methods: We conducted a comprehensive literature review of gaming disorder, focusing on studies that investigated its clinical characteristics and neurobiological mechanisms. Based on this evidence, we further discuss gaming disorder as a psychiatric disorder.

Results: The present review demonstrated that the brain regions involved in gaming disorder are related to executive functioning (e.g., anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), reward systems (e.g., striatum and orbitofrontal cortex), and emotional regulation (e.g., insula and amygdala). Despite the inclusion of gaming disorder in the ICD-11, the debate remains on the benefits and harms of classifying it as a mental health disorder. Opponents argue that the current manifestations that support gaming disorder as a psychiatric disorder remain inadequate, it could cause moral panic among healthy gamers, and that the label of gaming disorder is stigmatising.

Discussion: Evidence suggests that gaming disorder shares similar neurobiological alterations with other types of behavioural and substance-related addictions, which further supports gaming disorder as a behavioural addiction. Ongoing debates on whether gaming disorder is a psychiatric disorder push for further exploring the nature of gaming disorder and resolving this dilemma in the field.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Behavioral Addictions
Creators:	Zheng, Y.-B., Zhang, S.-N., Tang, H.-D., Wang, S.-W., Lin, X., Bao, Y.-P., Wang, Y.-M., Griffiths, M.D., Sun, J., Han, Y. and Lu, L.
Publisher:	Akademiai Kiado Zrt.
Date:	8 January 2025
ISSN:	2062-5871
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1556/2006.2024.00071 DOI 2337523 Other
Rights:	© 2024 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium for non-commercial purposes, provided the original author and source are credited, a link to the CC License is provided, and changes – if any – are indicated.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Borcherds
Date Added:	10 Jan 2025 09:39
Last Modified:	10 Jan 2025 09:39
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/52832

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