Post by sifatahmed on Dec 27, 2021 6:03:38 GMT
The popularity and availability of smartphones has increased dramatically in recent years. This trend is accompanied by increased concern about the potentially adverse effects of excessive smartphone use, particularly with regard to physical and mental health. Recently, the term "smartphone addiction" (SPA) has been introduced to describe addictive behavior related to smartphones and the associated physical and psychosocial impairment.
According to the Last Database published by C. García, since the end of 2019 time at home has increased and confinement due to the pandemic was added to the social outbreak. This has promoted the use of technological resources, such as cell phones, computers or tablets. Teleworking, online classes and entertainment provided by digital platforms have been very useful to cope with confinement, although they could also be causing changes at the brain level and creating cell phone addicts.
Cell phone addiction behavior could be determined by answering some questions that were used in a recent study carried out by Christian Wolf's group , from the University of Heidelberg (Germany), in which it is found that cell phone addicts have Neural changes in brain regions that are associated with addictive behavior.
Materials and methods
In this, structural and functional 3T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to investigate gray matter volume (GMV) and intrinsic neuronal activity in individuals with SPA (n = 22) compared to a control group (n = 26). SPA was assessed using the Smartphone Addiction Inventory (SPAI), GMV was investigated by voxel-based morphometry, and intrinsic neural activity was measured by amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF).
Compared to controls, individuals with SPA showed lower GMV in the left anterior insula, inferior temporal cortex, and parahippocampal (p xtagstartz0.001, uncorrected for height, followed by correction for spatial extent). A lower intrinsic activity in SPA was found in the right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). A significant negative association was found between SPAI and both ACC volume and activity. Furthermore, a significant negative association was found between SPAI scores and the left orbitofrontal GMV. This study provides the first evidence of different structural and functional correlates of behavioral addiction in individuals who meet the psychometric criteria of SPA. Given its widespread use and growing popularity,