Explicit and implicit emotion regulation in individuals with problematic internet use: Evidence from effective connectivity

Emotion regulation can be divided into explicit and implicit processes. Individuals with problematic internet use (PIU) often exhibit deficits in cognitive control, which may impair their ability to regulate emotions explicitly. However, implicit emotion regulation, which requires fewer cognitive resources, may remain intact in these individuals. Current understanding of implicit emotion regulation in PIU is limited, and related neural evidence has not been thoroughly evaluated. This study, utilizing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), compares the performance of explicit and implicit emotion regulation, as well as the associated neural mechanisms, in individuals with PIU. Behavioral results showed that although explicit emotion regulation was more effective than implicit emotion regulation, individuals with PIU exhibited poorer emotion regulation performance under the explicit condition; however, no significant group differences were observed under the implicit condition. fNIRS results further revealed that the PIU group demonstrated lower activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmpfc) and reduced effective connectivity from the vmpfc to the orbitofrontal cortex (ofc). The effective connectivity from vmpfc to ofc mediates the effect of PIU scores on explicit emotion regulation. These findings provide evidence of reduced explicit emotion regulation performance in individuals with PIU, while implicit regulation remains unaffected. This suggests that the importance of the vmpfc and ofc as potential neural correlates associated with emotion regulation in individuals with PIU.