Citation

Grant JE, Chamberlain SR, Schreiber LRN, Odlaug BL, Kim SW. Psychiatry Res. 2011; 189(1): 115-120.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, University of Minnesota Medical Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.psychres.2011.05.034

PMID

21715016

Abstract

Despite reasonable knowledge of pathological gambling (PG), little is known of its cognitive antecedents. We evaluated decision-making and impulsivity characteristics in people at risk of developing PG using neuropsychological tests. Non-treatment seeking volunteers (18-29 years) who gamble ≥5 times/year were recruited from the general community, and split into two groups: those "at risk" of developing PG (n=74) and those social, non-problem gamblers (n=112). Participants undertook the Cambridge Gamble and Stop-signal tasks and were assessed with the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview and the Yale Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale Modified for Pathological Gambling. On the Cambridge Gamble task, the at-risk subjects gambled more points overall, were more likely to go bankrupt, and made more irrational decisions under situations of relative risk ambiguity. On the Stop-signal task, at-risk gamblers did not differ from the social, non-problem gamblers in terms of motor impulse control (stop-signal reaction times). Findings suggest that selective cognitive dysfunction may already be present in terms of decision-making in at-risk gamblers, even before psychopathology arises. These findings implicate selective decision-making deficits and dysfunction of orbitofronto-limbic circuitry in the chain of pathogenesis between social, non-problematic and pathological gambling.

Language: en