Gaming disorder (GD) is increasingly recognized for its adverse impact on social functioning, yet the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear, particularly during real-time social interactions. This study examined neural differences in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and temporoparietal junction (TPJ) during cooperation and competition tasks in adolescents and young adults with GD.

Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we examined 175 male participants, classified into Gaming Disorder (n = 42), Hazardous Gaming (n = 69), and Healthy Control (n = 64) groups. Participants performed cooperation and competition tasks while activation, functional connectivity, and network topology were assessed within the PFC and TPJ.

In the current study, GD participants exhibited significantly greater impairments in social and emotional functioning compared to the HG and HC groups. The GD group showed increased right TPJ activation during cooperation and decreased activation during competition. Both GD and HG groups demonstrated heightened medial PFC activation and functional connectivity, indicating compensatory engagement. Graph theory analysis revealed disrupted network topology in GD, including reduced nodal efficiency and centrality within the PFC and TPJ. Neural alterations were significantly correlated with clinical measures, including gaming duration and social-emotional deficits.

This study identifies critical neural disruptions underlying social dysfunction in GD, particularly within mentalizing and executive control networks. The neural markers observed in the GD group have important implications for clinical diagnosis and targeted intervention, whereas similar patterns in the HG group highlight opportunities for early detection and preventive strategies.

Social anxiety is characterized by fear and avoidance of social situations, yet many everyday decisions are made in the presence of others and are shaped by social influence. However, the influences of social anxiety on social decision-making and the underlying neural processes are not well understood.

Fifty-five adults with varying levels of social anxiety completed a social risk decision-making task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In each trial, participants chose between a safe option and a risky gamble against either a human or a computer opponent, with or without information about others’ choices. Social influence on choice was quantified using repeated-measures analyses and drift–diffusion modeling, while brain activity and functional connectivity were examined using whole-brain analyses.

Compared to individuals with lower social anxiety, those with higher social anxiety showed reduced conformity to others’ risky choices, specifically when interacting with human, but not computer, opponents, together with a stronger starting-point bias toward safe options. These behavioral differences were accompanied by lower dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activation and stronger dlPFC–temporoparietal junction (TPJ) functional connectivity.

Social anxiety is associated with decreased social approach and reduced social influence from others in social decision contexts. Decreased activation of the prefrontal control system and its increased interactions with the social brain network point toward a conflict between heightened social monitoring and inefficient executive control. By distinguishing social-context effects from general risk aversion, this study provides a refined mechanistic framework for understanding how impaired regulatory control shapes maladaptive social decision-making in social anxiety.

Cooperation is a key component of our lives. When we identify people in need, we are frequently motivated to cooperate by overcoming selfishness. However, we may also become selfish to pursue greater gains by putting ourselves at risk and exploiting others. Such cooperation dilemmas are ubiquitous in real life. Although functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have repeatedly reported the involvement of right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) in cooperation dilemmas, a causal link between the two has been rarely explored.

To investigate a causal role of rTPJ in resolving cooperation dilemmas in ecologically valid settings.

Twenty-two healthy volunteers were examined. We combined repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) with a snowdrift cooperation dilemma game task (cross-the-traffic intersection version) wherein either cooperation or defection should be chosen. Participants and opponents jointly faced a problem at the intersection where their cooperation could diffuse the situation (stopping/avoiding a car-crash). This conflicted with a choice in the participant’s self-interest which was more rewarding, but risky (not stopping/defection). We also included explicit-cue condition that showed elderly/pregnant passengers in the opponent’s car. Furthermore, we measured participants’ empathic-traits (e.g., perspective-taking) to study personality-cooperation associations.

The cooperation-ratio did not statistically differ between the sham stimulation and inhibitory continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) in both the no-cue and with-cue conditions. However, after cTBS, only in the no-cue condition, the strength of the relationship between cooperation-ratios and empathic-traits decreased significantly (p<0.05).

These results contribute to our understandings of rTPJ’s role in spontaneous social cognition, which may be considerably complex and require further examination.

No significant relationships.