Mindfulness meditation reduced addiction severity and game craving in people with internet gaming disorder more effectively than progressive muscle relaxation. After one month of training, functional connectivity between the executive control network and both the default mode network and reward-related brain regions increased. These connectivity changes correlated negatively with dopamine and acetylcholine transporters and positively with serotonin and GABA receptors. The findings suggest mindfulness meditation enhances top-down control over cravings by altering brain network interactions.
Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is a global mental health issue, and effective treatments remain challenging. In a study of 61 participants with IGD, 30 received mindfulness meditation (MM) training and 31 received progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) over eight sessions. Using resting-state functional MRI and dynamic network analysis of 142 brain regions, MM training significantly reduced addiction severity and cravings compared to PMR, which showed only nonspecific effects. MM increased brain network recruitment in the frontoparietal and basal ganglia networks while decreasing it in the default mode network, and increased integration between the frontoparietal-default mode and default mode-limbic networks. MM may improve top-down control, cognitive and emotional functions, and reward processing through reconfiguration of these neural pathways.