SynthesisJournal of behavioral addictions2025
Neural mechanisms of behavioral addiction: An ALE meta-analysis and MACM analysis.
Synthesis in Journal of behavioral addictions, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Neural Blueprint of Novelty: A Meta-Analytic Dissection of Active and Passive Novelty Processing Networks.Brain and behavior · 2026Pooled it
- Person, Affective, Cognitive, and Executive Dimensions Associated with Problematic Social Media Use, Internet Gaming Disorder, and Their Co-Occurrence in Young Adults.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2026Article
- Food addiction in behavioral addictions: a network approach.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Predicting sugar-sweetened beverage intake from the brain and known risk factors in adolescents.Physiology & behavior · 2025Article
- Temperament, brain structure and problematic video gaming in adolescence - A six-year longitudinal study.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2025Article
- How addiction fuels innovation: a mixed-methods study on the psychological trade-offs of digital labor in gig economy.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Brain network of athletes in motor imagery and action anticipation: an ALE meta-analysis and MACM analysis.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background and aims: Behavioral addictions (BAs) represent complex and multifaceted disorders often associated with maladaptive neural alteration. To deepen our understanding of the essence of BAs, this study focuses on the neural mechanisms underlying its three stages: reward seeking, self-control, and decision-making. The aim of the current meta-analysis is to investigate the brain regions and neural networks involved in BAs. Methods: Adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we systematically searched for relevant articles published before September 1, 2024, in the Web of Science and PubMed databases, and supplemented our search with Google Scholar. We conducted analyses using activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis and meta-analytic connectivity modeling (MACM) analyses. Results: A total of 50 functional magnetic resonance imaging studies involving 906 participants were included. The findings showed that individuals with BAs exhibited hyperactivation in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), bilateral caudate and left middle frontal gyrus (MFG), and a high degree of connectivity was found between the right caudate, left caudate, and right IFG. These findings indicated that BAs were associated with the fronto-striatal circuits. Individuals with BAs demonstrate specific neural activation patterns in the reward seeking, self-control, and decision-making stages, characterized by differences in activation and functional connectivity of brain regions associated with these stages. Discussion and conclusions: This study verifies the pivotal role of the fronto-striatal circuits in BAs and highlights the specific patterns of brain activity in different stages of addictive behavior. These findings expand our understanding of neural mechanisms underlying BAs and supports and provide partial support for the I-PACE model.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.