Screens and brains: multimodal neuroimaging insights into mechanisms of problematic smartphone use
Wolf ND, Henemann GM, Schmitgen MM, Koenig J, Bach P, Wolf RC
Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry · 4 citas
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Cómo se estudió
- Diseño
- Revisión sistemática (indexado por PubMed)
- Estudiado en
- Personas
- Resultado principal
- Solo mecanismos
Quién lo pagó
- Financiación
- Financiación no declarada
Publicación
- Publicado
- 2025-10-01 · Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry · vol. 142 · pág. 111531
- Editorial
- Elsevier BV
- Citado
- 10 citas · más que el 99% de estudios similares · 18.3× el promedio de su campo
- Impacto
- Entre el 10 % más citado de su campo
- Referencias
- 91 trabajos
- Acceso
- Acceso abierto (revista híbrida) · CC-BY
- Áreas de investigación
- Impact of Technology on Adolescents · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Gambling Behavior and Treatments
- Palabras clave
- smartphone addiction, behavioral addiction, executive dysfunction, cue reactivity, reward processing, social cognition, frontostriatal circuits, compulsive smartphone use, self-regulation, neural correlates
- MeSH
- brain, humans, reward, executive function, neuroimaging, multimodal imaging, smartphone, internet addiction disorder
6 autores
- Nadine Donata Wolf🇩🇪Heidelberg University; Deutsches Zentrum für Psychische Gesundheit
- Gudrun M. Henemann🇩🇪Heidelberg University; Deutsches Zentrum für Psychische Gesundheit
- Mike Michael Schmitgen🇩🇪Heidelberg University; Deutsches Zentrum für Psychische Gesundheit
- Julian Koenig🇩🇪University of Cologne; University Hospital Cologne
- Patrick Bach🇩🇪Central Institute of Mental Health; Deutsches Zentrum für Psychische Gesundheit
- Robert Christian Wolf🇩🇪Heidelberg University; Deutsches Zentrum für Psychische Gesundheit
Resumen
El texto original del estudio, en el idioma en que se publicó.
Background
Problematic smartphone use (PSU) is increasingly regarded as a form of behavioral addiction, marked by compulsive engagement and diminished self-regulation. An expanding body of evidence points to distinct neural correlates of PSU, including heightened sensitivity to smartphone-related cues, aberrant reward processing, and executive dysfunction.
Objectives
This systematic review synthesizes contemporary evidence from multimodal neuroimaging studies that seek to elucidate the neurobiological substrates of PSU. To unify and contextualize these findings, a social-cognitive framework is proposed.
Methods
A pre-registered systematic literature review (PROSPERO ID no. 1068662) was conducted to identify structural and functional neuroimaging studies on problematic smartphone use (PSU) published in the past decade.
Results
Neuroimaging data consistently demonstrate abnormalities in frontostriatal and frontolimbic circuits, implicating reduced executive control, heightened cue reactivity, and altered processing of socially salient stimuli. Neural responses to smartphone-related reward cues exhibit substantial convergence with activation patterns associated with social cognition. Social-cognitive distortions, such as maladaptive interpretations of digital social feedback, may potentiate the motivational salience of smartphone cues, thereby reinforcing compulsive usage patterns.
Conclusion
Reviewed studies indicate that PSU emerges from a dynamic and multifactorial interaction between neurobiological vulnerabilities, affective responsiveness, cognitive biases, and impairments in executive control. These factors show patterns of reciprocal reinforcement, facilitating the consolidation of automatic, habitual engagement with smartphone-mediated stimuli. Within this framework, socially mediated reinforcement mechanisms may serve as critical drivers for both, the development and persistence of PSU. Integration of social-cognitive factors of PSU offers promising avenues for future prevention and intervention strategies, highlighting targets for future investigations.
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