The Mechanism Of Performance Monitoring In IAD By An ERP Study

Internet addiction disorder (IAD), also described as problematic Internetuse, is the inability of an individual to control the overuse of the Internet,eventually causing psychological, social, and/or work difficulties。Many reports related to the neural mechanism of Internet Addiction havebeen published. The ERP technology has also been utilized to monitorbehavioral network addiction。but there are still some spaces to research on.However, Internet Addiction error monitoring mechanism has not beenreported here and there. Therefore, the article uses the ERP technology toresearch on the network monitoring mechanism and error control mechanisms.In this experiment, all the individuals should participate in two tasks: Go/Nogotask and Flanker task. In the Go/Nogo task, two ERP components N2/P3reflectthe response inhibition process during/after conflict monitoring. In the Flankertask, the ERN/Pe amplitude of error response reflects the error adjustmentmechanism and error procession during/after error detecting.Objective: This research uses ERPs technology to explore the behavioralmonitoring mechanism of network addicts, by comparing the difference of theconflict monitoring and error detecting neural mechanism between the addictgroup and the normal group, it discussed the relationship between networkaddiction, conflict monitoring and inhibition, and error detecting and handling.Method:We selected17network addicts from the Beijing Military GeneralHospital, and select17healthy volunteers as reference group. The two groupsare excluded from historic mental illness, historic drug addiction and othermedical illness, and with normal vision or corrected normal vision. The ERPsare recorded by the Go/Nogo task and Flanker task. The32-channel EEG isrecorded to carry on offline analysis. Electro-encephalogram (EEG) wasrecorded continuously by a set of32Ag/AgCI electrodes placed. We measuredthe peak amplitude and peak latency of N2, P3, ERN and Pe at front central and central regions of3electrodes (FZ, FCZ, and CZ). Behavioral data wereanalyzed via t-test and ANOVAs. For ERPs data, Within-group comparisons andbetween-group comparisons were performed using repeated measurementanalysis of variance (RMANOVA)Results:1. Behavioral data reflects that the network addicts group showeda faster reaction in the Go/Nogo task and Flanker task, moreover, the networkaddicts group showed higher error rate in the Go/Nogo task.2. The N2, P3amplitude of the addict group showed significant different with the normalgroup(F1,27=4.997, p=0.034；F1，24=6.164，p=0.020), while the N2, P3latencyof the two groups showed no great difference(P>0.5).3. The induced ERNamplitude of the addict group is smaller than the normal group (F1,30=5.396，p=0.037), the Pe amplitude of the two groups showed no significantdifference(P>0.05). The ERN and Pe latency showed no significantdifference(P>0.5).Conclusion:1. Network addict group showed significant differences interms of conflict monitoring and deep processing of conflict information.2.Network addict group in the Go/Nogo experiment, represents weaken N2amplitude and enhance P3amplitude compared with the normal group, whichreveals the network addict may have obstacles in the conflict monitoring, thuscan’t well complete the conflict monitoring and inhibition.3. Network addictgroup in the Flanker experiment, represents significantly reduced ERNamplitude, which reveals the network addicts have lower ability of errormonitoring.