| Summary: | Smartphone usage among young Malaysian adults has increased dramatically
in the past decade leading to smartphone addiction (SPA) particularly involving
social networking applications such as Instagram. SPA prevalence has been
noted to be as high as 47% among medical students in a Malaysian university.
There is a need to objectively assess the cerebral mechanisms that respond to
reward using electroencephalography (EEG)-informed functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) also known as EEG-fMRI as a potential biomarker.
Therefore, after receiving ethical clearance, an observational study was
conducted among 24 male UPM students using Smartphone Addiction Scale-
Malay version (SAS-M) questionnaire, modified Instagram Addiction Scale (IAS)
and EEG-fMRI. The subjects were recruited by simple random sampling from a
Phase 1 cross sectional study comprising of 850 male UPM students who had
been administered with the SAS-M questionnaire. Subjects with SAS-M scores
≥ 98 and IAS ≥ 37 were considered High scorers (HS) and deemed to be having
SPA, whereas subjects with SAS-M scores < 98 and IAS < 37 were considered
Low Scorers (LS) and deemed as healthy controls. A 64-channel EEG scalp
electrode was placed on the participants (12 HS, 12 LS) and a task-based fMRI
was performed with simultaneous EEG recordings.
Evoked response potential (ERP) derivatives of EEG namely the P300 peak
waves and contingent negativity variance (CNV) were analyzed using Brain-
Vision EEG analyzer and fMRI dataset were analyzed using Statistical
Parametric Mapping (SPM). There was significant difference in the P300 wave amplitude between HS and LS, which corresponded well with cerebral
activations regions related to response to reward.
The combination of the high spatial resolution of fMRI with the high temporal
resolution of EEG to correlate cerebral regional activation, in response to cue
related reactivity during response to reward task among smartphone addicts,
has the potential to be a surrogate biological marker for assessment of
Instagram addiction.
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