Smartphone Addiction Creates Imbalance In Brain, Study Suggests

[Seeweed65]

Can anybody makes a little bit more sense of this than what I can make of it.



Smartphone addiction creates imbalance in brain, study suggests

The results of the MRS revealed that, compared to the healthy controls, the ratio of GABA to Glx was significantly increased in the anterior cingulate cortex of smartphone- and internet-addicted youth prior to therapy.

Dr. Seo said the ratios of GABA to creatine and GABA to glutamate were significantly correlated to clinical scales of internet and smartphone addictions, depression and anxiety

 

[lampofred]

Isn't a high ratio of GABA to glutamate a good thing? It means there is low excitotoxicity and low nitric oxide.

They are saying high GABA causes anxiety... what??? Benzos help anxiety by increasing GABA.

 

[Seeweed65]

@lampofred but Benzos can also be very addictive, maybe this is where the addiction part of the smart phone use comes from, I really don’t know but I just found it very confusing.

 

[LuMonty]

I only heard of too much GABA doing that before once, so this interests me; that was in a mini-study on gaming addiction. From the last few paragraphs, what I understand is that too much GABA disregulates the cognitive and emotional "neural network." I put that in quotes because I'm not sure if there's some standard meaning for that, or if it's a catch-all in some form, like for the whole brain or all systems that use GABA.

Even if their interpretation is correct, there really isn't any reason to trust the mechanism named after the SSRI crap. I don't really argue the being detached, but I think a better explanation would be the GABA acts as a soother, sometimes to the point of zombification. So I think habituation to the dopamine of social media crap along with the GABA shot from long-term general use is a simpler, better explanation. Dopamine and GABA are good, but when they're conditional things get messy due to withdrawal or stress hormones like cortisol rising to compensate, though these are more speculative.

I also find the study suspect because all newer "diagnoses" seem to have the magic cure of CBT. I went through a few therapists and none of them had any skills aside from talk therapy; I only found two therapists over 10 years who do CBT, and only for those 12 and younger.