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Hamburg (pte008/10.01.2005/10:25) - People prone to serious gambling show a similar pattern of brain activity to those who are addicted to drugs, according to new research. According to the researchers from the Universitäts-Krankenhaus Eppendorf (UKE) http://www.uke.uni-hamburg.de in Hamburg, Germany, this showed gambling was also a form of addiction. As the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk reports, the parts of the brain which are active when people feel rewarded, curbing activity, are less so in those who take drugs or gamble to excess, the researchers say.
The study involved the monitoring of the brains of 12 compulsive gamblers and 12 non-gamblers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they played a simple guessing game. Players were then shown two-face down cards and had to choose one of them. If the card came up red, they won one euro. The study found that the ventral striatum, the part of the brain that signals reward, was less active in the pathological gamblers, despite the fact that both groups won and lost the same amount of money. Reduced activity in this area is also recognised as a hallmark of drug addiction.
The German researchers suggest that the explanation could be that people with these kinds of addictions are unable to maintain the amount of the brain chemical dopamine - which produces feelings of satisfaction and pleasure - which they need in the ventral striatum, in everyday life. To compensate, they need stronger triggers, such as drugs or excessive gambling. The research team from the UKE, led by Christian Buchel wrote in Nature Neuroscience that they "favour the view that pathological gambling is a non-substance related addiction".
However, according to Mark Griffiths, professor of gambling studies at the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University http://www.ntu.ac.uk , differences in brain activity was too simplistic an explanation for why some people gambled and others did not. "The explanation for why people gamble is more holistic than that. It's not just about the gambler, it's about other factors such as their social environment." Griffiths added that the design of gambling activities was also a factor in prompting people to become addictive. "There are differences. For example, a slot machine is more problematic than buying a weekly lottery ticket. This study is one more piece of the jigsaw that helps give gambling legitimacy as a bona-fide addiction," he said.
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