Projects

Patients presenting at the early detection and intervention center (FETZ Bern) will be assessed for psychopathological symptoms and neuropsychology. During this time, EMA will be conducted for one week to estimate stability of psychopathology throughout time. In a first session a MR assessment will be conducted to measure brain function and metabolism during the resting state. In a second experimental session the mirror gazing task (trigger of depersonalization phenomena), social interaction, emotion recognition and reward tasks will be conducted in combination with near-infrared-spectroscopy and eye tracking to assess functioning in the respective domains. Follow-ups will be conducted after 6, 12 and 24 months.

The project investigates neurobiological changes associated with gaming behavior and characteristics of internet gaming disorder, stress reactivity and the influence of comorbidities in male adolescents and young adults. Here, we assess symptoms, salivary stress hormones, heart rate variability, magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy to disentangle the core characteristics of IGD, but also capture neurobiological correlates of changes in gaming behavior throughout time within the same subject.

Male patients with IGD (according to DSM-5, ICD-11 criteria) will be compared with healthy controls and clinical controls in a cross-sectional study with regard to stress parameters (e.g. cortisol), psychopathology, heart rate variability brain metabolism and function. In the longitudinal part of the study, we will follow-up patients with IGD for further 2 weeks in two conditions (restricted gaming vs. unrestricted gaming), again measuring stress, psychopathology and MRI twice (one week low gaming vs. one week high gaming).