Internet addiction causes physical damage to the brain: study

Internet addiction alters brain structure, researchers say

Internet addiction can cause physical changes to the brain, a new study has found.

A group of researchers from China said internet addiction disrupts nerve wiring in the brains of teenagers causing a level of brain damage normally observed in alcohol and drug addicts.

Led by Dr. Hao Lei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan, the research team studied 17 adolescents who were diagnosed with Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) and compared scans of their brains to scans of 16 healthy individuals who weren't addicted to the web.

Specialized MRI brain scans showed changes in the white matter of the brain—the portion containing the nerve fibers—in those classified as being web addicts, compared with non-addicts.

These changes in the brain showed evidence of disrupting pathways related to emotions, decision-making, and self control.

"The results also suggest that IAD may share psychological and neural mechanisms with other types of substance addiction and impulse control disorders," the researchers wrote in the study.

The National Health Service (NHS) of United Kingdom said the results of the study should be interpreted cautiously as the small number of participants increases the likelihood that the findings were due to chance.

"The study cannot tell us anything about whether obsessive internet use causes changes to the brain, as some headlines have suggested." NHS said. "From this study we cannot rule out the possibility that the participants’ brains were structured this way before their heavy internet usage. If this were the case it would raise the possibility that their brain structure was responsible for their actions rather than their actions altering their brain structure."

The findings of the study were posted on the Public Library of Science ONE website.