#PATHOLOGICAL GAMBLING CENTER SKIN#

Here we demonstrated that a control and inhibitory-oriented region of the brain, the right orbitofrontal cortex, was significantly different in its neural patterns across gamblers and non-gambling participants.Ī third neurotransmitter involved in reward processing is GABA, an inhibitory neurotransmitter to neural activation. Yet another contribution to the literature on gambling issues.įurthermore, our group has been the first to assess magnetoencephalogram (MEG) brain correlates in a gambling study, where participants were scanned on the first MEG-scanner in Scandinavia. This manipulation affected participants to become more risk-willing in their behaviours when gambling. In a study on the brain’s serotonergic system, we tested a group of participants, who were given medicine manipulating the serotonergic system. Here, non-gamblers did not identify a difference across these different manipulations, whereas gamblers elicited increased stress responses as a consequence of changes in delay periods prior to a novel gamble situation.Īpart from our group’s research within dopamine, we have conducted studies within serotonin, another neurotransmitter in the brain involved in gambling and depression.

in which the time delay before a new game could be started was manipulated). This pointed towards the idea of gambling behaviour representing a form of self-medication and an addiction-reinforcing mean.īased on these studies, our group attempted to create a gambling-reducing slot-machine, in which participants with gambling issues were exposed to different types of slot-machines (e.g.

And that this subgroup showed greater gambling problems with regards to both time and money spent gambling. After neuropsychological testing had been conducted, we showed that approximately 50 percent of participants showed depressive symptoms. Here, participants with gambling issues were allowed only to participate if not receiving anti-depressant treatment during the study and if not diagnosed with clinical depression. In line with this clinical issue and lack of treatment hereof, our group has looked at the association between gambling issues and depression. These side-effects have proven detrimental to the everyday lives of parkinsonian patients. In line with this, our group also examined the risk of parkinsonian patients treated with dopamine agonists to develop gambling addiction or other impulse control-related issues. On the day of publication, this was presented on Danish national television news (DR1). In a separate study, we found an association between personality (sensation-seeking personality traits) and the percentage of available dopamine receptors in the brain.

#PATHOLOGICAL GAMBLING CENTER SKIN#

Other studies from our group have found an association between the dopaminergic system in the brain and 1) skin conductance responses (SCR), and 2) different forms of gambling strategy. In non-gamblers, there was shown no significant effect of this. Furthermore, the gamblers who played with great risk (and lost money) had great amounts of dopamine released, whereas the participants who gambled with low risk (and won money) had a decreased availability of dopamine - in other words, the predictability of the associated outcome bored and tired the gamblers, in spite of the fact that they won.

Instructing both groups of participants to complete this task showed that there were significantly larger changes in available dopamine in the participants with gambling issues. We also examined reward learning in the brain, where participants were scanned twice on both an active and a passive version of the Iowa Gambling Task, a widely used decision making task. In the very first studies from our group, we examined the effects of dopamine in the brain. Throughout the scientific literature, it is well established that dopamine is heavily involved in the reward system of the brain.

Pathological gambling center