title: An event-related potential investigation of deficient inhibitory control in individuals with pathological Internet use.
abstract: Zhou Z-H, Yuan G-Z, Yao J-J, Li C, Cheng Z-H. An event-related potential investigation of deficient inhibitory control in individuals with pathological Internet use.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to investigate deficient inhibitory control in individuals with pathological Internet use (PIU) using a visual go/no-go task by event-related potentials (ERPs).
  
  
  METHODS
  Subjects were 26 individuals with PIU and 26 controls. Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 (BIS-11) was used for measures of impulsivity. A go/no-go task involved eight different two-digit numerical stimuli. The response window was 1000 ms and the inter-trial-interval (ITI) was 1500 ms. Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded when participants performed the task. Brain electrical source analysis (BESA) 5.2.0 was used to perform data analysis and the no-go N2 amplitude was analysed for investigation of inhibitory control.
  
  
  RESULTS
  BIS-11 total scores, attentional key and motor key scores in PIU group were higher than that of the control group. In the go/no-go task, false alarm rate of PIU group was higher, and hit rate was lower than that of the control group. A repeated measure ANOVA revealed a significant group, frontal electrode sites and group × frontal electrode sites main effect for N2 amplitudes of no-go conditions (for group: F = 3953, df = 1, p = 0.000; for frontal electrode sites: F = 541, df = 9, p = 0.000; for group × frontal electrode sites: F = 306, df = 9, p = 0.000), and a significant group, central electrode sites and group × central electrode sites main effect for N2 amplitudes of no-go conditions (for group: F = 9074, df = 1, p = 0.000; for central electrode sites: F = 163, df = 2, p = 0.000; for group × central electrode sites: F = 73, df = 2, p = 0.000). N2 amplitudes of no-go conditions were lower than those at control group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Individuals with PIU were more impulsive than controls and shared neuropsychological and ERPs characteristics of compulsive-impulsive spectrum disorder, which supports that PIU is an impulse disorder or at least related to impulse control disorder.
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Psychology, Wuxi Mental Health Center of Nanjing Medical University, Wuxi 214151, China.
authors.forename: Zhen-He
authors.initials: ZH
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Psychology, Wuxi Mental Health Center of Nanjing Medical University, Wuxi 214151, China.
authors.forename: Guo-Zhen
authors.initials: GZ
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Psychology, Wuxi Mental Health Center of Nanjing Medical University, Wuxi 214151, China.
authors.forename: Jian-Jun
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Psychology, Wuxi Mental Health Center of Nanjing Medical University, Wuxi 214151, China.
authors.forename: Cui
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Psychology, Wuxi Mental Health Center of Nanjing Medical University, Wuxi 214151, China.
authors.forename: Zao-Huo
authors.initials: ZH
authors.lastname: Cheng