Internet Addiction Harms Brain 'Like Cocaine'

Internet addiction can be as damaging to teenagers' brains as alcohol and drugs, a study suggests.

Scientists say internet addiction disorder (IAD) is a recently recognised condition where individuals spend unhealthy amounts of time online.

Researchers have now discovered it disrupts nerve wiring in adolescent brains in a similar way to people exposed to cocaine and cannabis.

They believe it shows that being hooked on a behaviour can be just as physically damaging as addiction to drugs.

Denied access to their computers, people may experience distress and withdrawal symptoms including tremors, obsessive thoughts, and involuntary typing movements of the fingers.

Until now research on IAD has focused on psychological assessments rather than the impact on the body.

The new study involved scans on the brains of 17 internet-addicted adolescents and 16 non-addicted individuals in China.

In the IAD-diagnosed teenagers, the scientists, led by Dr Hao Lei from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, found evidence of disruption to "white matter" nerve fibres connecting vital parts of the brain involved in emotions, decision making, and self-control.

Previous studies have shown abnormal white matter structure in the brains of people who have had alcohol, cocaine and cannabis among other drugs.

The scientists suspect the damage is caused by disrupted myelin, the fatty insulating sheath that helps nerves work.

Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones, consultant psychiatrist at Imperial College London, said the research was "groundbreaking"

"We are finally been told what clinicians suspected for some time now," she said.

Currently, internet addiction is officially classified as an "impulse control disorder" rather than a "genuine" addiction.

Further studies with larger numbers of subjects would be needed before it might be reclassified, said Dr Bowden-Jones.