Developmental changes in brain function linked with addiction-like social media use two years later.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Adolescent Health

Background:

• Addiction-like social media use (ASMU) is prevalent in adolescents, correlating with negative health outcomes like depression.
• Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying ASMU is crucial for developing targeted interventions.
• Adolescence is a critical period of brain development, particularly in social reward circuitry.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the developmental trajectories of neural social feedback processing in relation to ASMU.
• To examine how changes in brain responsivity across puberty influence ASMU and depressive symptoms.
• To explore gender differences in the relationship between neural development, ASMU, and depression.

Main Methods:

• Longitudinal study involving 103 adolescents (6th-11th grade) with 1-3 fMRI scans.
• Utilized a social incentive delay task to measure brain responsivity to positive social feedback.
• Assessed ASMU and depressive symptoms via self-report in later adolescence (10th-11th grade).

Main Results:

• Decreased brain responsivity in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and right inferior frontal gyrus across puberty was associated with higher ASMU.
• Pubertal decreases in brain responsivity predicted increased ASMU.
• Increased ASMU was linked to higher depressive symptoms in adolescent girls, but not boys, mediated by neural responsivity changes.

Conclusions:

• Developmental decreases in neural responsivity to positive social feedback during puberty may represent a risk factor for ASMU.
• The pathway from neural development to ASMU and subsequent depressive symptoms appears to be gender-specific, particularly affecting adolescent girls.
• Early hyperresponsivity followed by pubertal decreases in social feedback processing could be key indicators for ASMU risk.