Measurement of craving among gamers with internet gaming disorder using repeated presentations of game videos: a resting-state electroencephalography study

BACKGROUND: Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is receiving increasing attention owing to its effects on daily living and psychological function. METHODS: In this study, electroencephalography was used to compare neural activity triggered by repeated presentation of a stimulus in healthy controls (HCs) and those with IGD. A total of 42 adult men were categorized into two groups (IGD, n = 21) based on Y-IAT-K scores. Participants were required to watch repeated presentations of video games while wearing a head-mounted display, and the delta (D), theta (T), alpha (A), beta (B), and gamma (G) activities in the prefrontal (PF), central (C), and parieto-occipital (PO) regions were analyzed. RESULTS: The IGD group exhibited higher absolute powers of D(C), D(PO), T(C), T(PO), B(C), and B(PO) than HCs. Among the IGD classification models, a neural network achieves the highest average accuracy of 93% (5-fold cross validation) and 84% (test). CONCLUSIONS: These findings may significantly contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the neurological features associated with IGD and provide potential neurological markers that can be used to distinguish between individuals with IGD and HCs.