Mapping generative AI use in the human brain: divergent neural, academic, and mental health profiles of functional versus socio emotional AI use

TL;DR

This study investigates how different patterns of generative AI use among university students are associated with distinct brain structures, academic performance, and mental health outcomes, highlighting the importance of usage motivations.

Contribution

It reveals that functional and socio emotional AI use have opposite effects on brain regions, mental health, and academic success, informing safer AI integration strategies.

Findings

Higher functional AI use correlates with better GPA and larger prefrontal and hippocampal regions.

Socio emotional AI use is linked to poorer mental health and smaller social brain regions.

Distinct neural signatures are associated with different AI usage motivations.

Abstract

The widespread adoption of generative artificial intelligence conversational agents (AICAs) among university students constitutes a novel cognitive social environment whose impact on the maturing brain remains elusive. Combining surveys with high resolution structural MRI, we examined patterns of general, functional, and socio emotional AICA use, academic performance, mental health, and brain structural signatures in a comparatively large sample of 222 young individuals. Across computational anatomy, meta analytic network level, and behavioral decoding analyses, we observed use specific associations. Higher general and functional AICA use frequencies were linked to better academic outcomes (GPA), larger dorsolateral prefrontal and calcarine gray matter volume, and enhanced hippocampal network clustering and local efficiency. In contrast, more frequent socio emotional AICA use was associated with poorer mental health (depression, social anxiety) and lower volume of superior temporal and amygdalar regions central to social and affective processing. These findings indicate that the same class of AI tools exerts distinct effects depending on usage patterns and motivations, engaging prefrontal hippocampal systems that support cognition versus socio emotional systems that may track distress linked usage. These heterogeneities are crucial for designing environments that harness the educational benefits of AI while mitigating mental health risks.