Multi-level pathways linking personality and mood to problematic smartphone use: A behavioral and neuroimaging study

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Genetics
• Psychiatry

Background:

• Problematic smartphone use (PSU) has unclear neural and molecular bases.
• Personality traits like dispositional greed (DGS) and emotional states like depressive symptoms (BDI) are implicated in PSU.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how DGS and BDI contribute to PSU using a multi-level approach.
• To explore the neural and molecular mechanisms underlying the relationship between DGS, BDI, and PSU.

Main Methods:

• Combined behavioral assessments, task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and whole-brain transcriptomics.
• Utilized the I-PACE model and a Face-Matching task in middle school and university participants.

Main Results:

• Higher DGS was directly linked to greater PSU, with BDI partially mediating this association.
• Altered activation in visual, emotional, and cognitive control networks was observed in relation to PSU.
• Specific mediation pathways involving BDI and DGS linked to visual processing circuits were identified.
• 447 genes correlated with PSU-related brain activity, showing distinct enrichment in nuclear transcriptional regulation (positive set) and mitochondrial functions (negative set).

Conclusions:

• DGS and BDI increase vulnerability to PSU via emotion-reactivity and cognitive control deficits, mediated by visual network activity.
• Distinct gene expression profiles underpin these associations, offering mechanistic insights.
• This multi-level framework supports precision-targeted interventions for problematic smartphone use.