Project Details
Projekt
RP10: Cue reactivity and craving in buying-shopping disorder and social network use disorder: Neural correlates, attentional bias, and media-specific features
Applicants
Professor Dr. Matthias Brand; Professorin Dr. Nicole Krämer; Professor Dr. Rudolf Maria Stark
Subject Area
General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
Term
since 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 411232260
Cue reactivity and craving are core constructs in substance use disorders and behavioral addictions. Neuroimaging studies on cue reactivity and craving in gaming disorder have demonstrated higher activity in the ventral and dorsal striatum and further structures involved in frontostriatal loops. There are also first studies showing the involvement of the ventral and dorsal striatum in processing buying-related pictures in buying-shopping disorder and social network-related pictures (e.g., “likes”) in casual users of social networks. In the first funding period of the Research Unit FOR2974, we have developed a new cue-reactivity paradigm with both proximal (e.g., showing game or pornography content directly) and distal cues (e.g., showing the login page of a game or a pornography website). This paradigm was used in RP4 of the first funding period to examine neural correlates (fMRI) of cue reactivity in gaming disorder and pornography use disorder. We were able to demonstrate that even the distal cues, which are highly comparable across the different applications, can already induce cue reactivity and craving. In RP10, we will now use this paradigm to examine neural correlates of online buying-shopping disorder and social network use disorder. We will use the same fMRI protocol as used in RP4, first funding period. Therefore, we will be able to compare the findings not only between the groups in RP10 but also with the groups included in RP4, first funding period, to draw a complete picture of the four types of specific Internet-use disorders that are focused on in the Research Unit FOR2974. We will include six groups (each with 37 participants): individuals with 1) buying-shopping disorder, 2) risky buying-shopping behaviors, 3) social network use disorder, 4) risky use of social networks, and 5) and 6) control participants who use both shopping and social networks non-problematically and are matched regarding age and gender with respect to the two groups of participants with pathological use. Furthermore, we will investigate cue reactivity and craving as well as punishment sensitivity in daily life using ambulatory assessment. Finally, we will also use the proximal pictures of the cue-reactivity paradigm and additional standardized pictures of shopping sites and social networks to investigate potential effects of media-specific features on attentional processes (performance in a change-blindness flicker paradigm). RP10 has strong relationships with RP4 of the first funding period as well as with RP3 (cue reactivity and punishment sensitivity in daily life), RP4 (cue reactivity and craving), and RP5 (attentional processes, online buying-shopping disorder and social network use disorder).
DFG Programme
Research Units
