Negative Effects of Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency on Spontaneous Brain Microstates: Evidence From Resting-State EEG

The prevalence of mobile phone addiction (MPA) has increased rapidly in recent years, and it has had a certain negative impact on emotions (e.g., anxiety and depression) and cognitive capacities (e.g., executive control and working memory). At the level of neural circuits, the continued increase in activity in the brain regions associated with addiction leads to neural adaptations and structural changes. At present, the spontaneous brain microstates that could be negatively influenced by MPA are unclear. In this study, the temporal characteristics of four resting-state electroencephalogram (RS-EEG) microstates (MS1, MS2, MS3, and MS4) related to mobile phone addiction tendency (MPAT) were investigated using the Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale (MPATS). We attempted to analyze the correlation between MPAT and corresponding microstates and provide evidence to explain the brain and behavioral changes caused by MPA. The results showed that the total score of the MPATS was positively correlated with the duration of MS1, related to phonological processing and negatively correlated with the duration of MS2, related to visual or imagery processing, and MS4, related to the attentional network; the score of the withdrawal symptoms subscale was additionally associated with duration of MS3, related to the cingulo-opercular emotional network. Based on these results, we believe that MPAT may have some negative effects on attentional networks and sensory brain networks; moreover, withdrawal symptoms may induce some negative emotions.