Table Of ContentStudies in Neuroscience, Psychology and
Behavioral Economics
Christian Montag
Martin Reuter Editors
Internet
Addiction
Neuroscientific Approaches and
Therapeutical Interventions
Studies in Neuroscience, Psychology
and Behavioral Economics
Series editors
Martin Reuter, Bonn, Germany
Christian Montag, Ulm, Germany
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11218
Christian Montag · Martin Reuter
Editors
Internet Addiction
Neuroscientific Approaches
and Therapeutical Interventions
1 3
Editors
Christian Montag Martin Reuter
Department of Psychology Department of Psychology
Molecular Psychology Personality Psychology and Biological
University of Ulm Psychology, Center for Economics
Ulm and Neuroscience (CENs)
Germany University of Bonn
Bonn
Germany
ISSN 2196-6605 ISSN 2196-6613 (electronic)
Studies in Neuroscience, Psychology and Behavioral Economics
ISBN 978-3-319-07241-8 ISBN 978-3-319-07242-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-07242-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014960140
Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London
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Preface
Dear practitioners, scientists, and students,
We are very happy that the book “Internet addiction: Neuroscientific approaches
and therapeutical interventions” is finally available to you. Current develop-
ments in the DSM-V underline the importance and the need for a scientific book
on this newly emerging disorder, as the term “Internet Gaming Disorder” now
appears among the emerging measures and models in Section III. It has been
included in this section with the aim of better understanding the nature of Internet
addiction and potentially including it as a distinct disorder in the next update
of DSM.
To precisely describe and characterize Internet addiction (and the related term
“Internet Gaming Disorder”), strong research efforts have been invested around
the globe. In this book, we give you an extensive overview of Internet addiction by
leading researchers in the field. It is fantastic that such a large number of scientists
doing the most important work on Internet addiction have agreed to write reviews
on their research approach. We are very grateful for this support.
We are sure that the present book will not only be an excellent guide to Internet
addiction for scientists and therapists working in this field, but to all individuals
interested in this new topic, or even patients affected by this emerging disorder.
Clearly, the topic of Internet addiction is of special relevance around the globe in
this increasingly connected online world.
Of note, the book is written for students, practitioners, and researchers alike, as
a wide range of different approaches to the understanding of Internet addiction—
ranging from molecular genetics to brain imaging—are represented in this book.
Each chapter gives a short introduction to these methods, as applied to the bet-
ter understanding of Internet addiction. If you require greater detail on the neu-
roscientific techniques such as structural MRI or molecular genetics, we refer
you to the core text, “Neuroeconomics” of the series “Studies in Neuroscience,
Psychology and Behavioral Economics” in which this book is also published. This
core text contains an extended appendix with individual chapters on a large num-
ber of neuroscientific methods. In addition to a very good overview on Internet
v
vi Preface
addiction and neuroscientific approaches in the second section of this book, a large
part of this book (the third section) gives interesting and valuable insights into the
treatment of Internet addiction. Experiences from both psychopharmacology and
psychological counseling are presented. The latter is also considered from a cross-
cultural perspective (Germany and South Korea). Finally, insights from a govern-
mental stance aimed at tackling this newly emerging disorder are also given. We
hope that this more practical section will be of special help to counselors all over
the world in treating this potential new disorder.
We thank all authors for their contribution. Without their valuable time spent on
this project, this book would not have been possible. Every single contributor is a
well-known researcher/practitioner in the field of Internet addiction. We are very
happy that they have all agreed to participate and to contribute without hesitation.
Last but not least, we thank Éilish Duke for her fantastic support in improving the
language of the present book.
A last note: We are aware of the controversial discussion in scientific circles on
how to name problematic Internet use. Neither it is clear if problematic Internet
use actually reflects an addiction nor is Internet addiction an official diagnosis in
DSM-V and ICD 10. However, taking into account early studies on this topic but
also the fact that the term Internet addiction still is often used and appears as quite
“handy” in everyday communication of this topic, we decided to use it for this
book.
Let us know if something of relevance is missing from this book. This will help
us to update the book in an eventual second edition.
Best wishes
Christian Montag
Martin Reuter
Contents
Part I Introduction to Internet Addiction
1 The Evolution of Internet Addiction Disorder ................... 3
Kimberly Young
Part II Neuroscientific Approaches to Internet Addiction
2 Structural Brain Imaging and Internet Addiction ................ 21
Fuchun Lin and Hao Lei
3 Functional Imaging of Internet Gaming Disorder ................ 43
Chih-Hung Ko, Gin-Chung Liu and Ju-Yu Yen
4 Internet Addiction and PET .................................. 65
Hyun Soo Park and Sang Eun Kim
5 Functional Brain Changes in Response to Treatment
of Internet Gaming Disorder ................................. 77
Doug Hyun Han, Sun Mi Kim and Perry F. Renshaw
6 Molecular Genetics, Personality and Internet Addiction .......... 93
Christian Montag and Martin Reuter
7 Autonomic Nervous System and Brain Circuitry
for Internet Addiction ....................................... 111
Andrew Chih Wei Huang
8 A Short Summary of Neuroscientific Findings
on Internet Addiction ....................................... 131
Christian Montag, Éilish Duke and Martin Reuter
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viii Contents
Part III Therapeutical Interventions & Governmental Policies
9 The Impact of Psychoinformatics on Internet Addiction .......... 143
Christian Montag, Martin Reuter and Alexander Markowetz
10 Pharmacological Treatment of Internet Addiction ................ 151
Giovanni Camardese, Beniamino Leone, Coco Walstra, Luigi Janiri
and Riccardo Guglielmo
11 Therapeutic Interventions for Treatment of Adolescent
Internet Addiction—Experiences from South Korea .............. 167
Eunsuk Cho
12 Therapeutic Interventions in the Treatment of Problematic
Internet Use—Experiences from Germany. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Wolfgang Dau, J.D.G. Hoffmann and Markus Banger
13 The Korean National Policy for Internet Addiction ............... 219
Young-Sam Koh
Appendix: Neuroanatomy ....................................... 235
Glossary ...................................................... 245
How to read this book
The book contains three parts, with a brief first part including a concise o verview
of Internet addiction by Kimberly Young, as an excellent starting point. The
second part gives detailed insights into different neuroscientific approaches
to Internet addiction research. If you only require a brief overview over the
neuroscientific literature as a starting point, the summary Chap. 8 will be of help.
Chapters 2–7 deal with distinct perspectives such as structural brain imaging and
Internet addiction. If you are mainly interested in therapeutic interventions in
the context of Internet addiction, you can skip the second part of the book (per-
haps with the exception of Chap. 5 dealing with functional changes of the brain
related to the treatment of Internet Gaming Disorder) and immediately go to the
third part, which provides different perspectives on the treatment of Internet addic-
tion. Finally, the book closes with an Appendix called Neuroanatomy comprising
several figures on human brain anatomy, intended to accompany the chapters of
the second part. In addition, a short glossary explains key vocabulary from the
book.
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