Decreased neuronal activity in reward circuitry of pathological gamblers during processing of personal relevant stimuli.

ABSTRACT: Pathological gamblers impress by an increasing preoccupation with gambling, which leads to the neglect of stimuli, interests, and behaviors that were once of high personal relevance. Neurobiologically dysfunctions in reward circuitry underlay pathological gambling. To explore the association of both findings, we investigated 16 unmedicated pathological gamblers using an fMRI paradigm that included two different tasks: the evaluation of personal relevance and a reward task that served as a functional localizer. Pathological gamblers revealed diminished deactivation during monetary loss events in some of our core reward regions, the left nucleus accumbens and the left putamen. Moreover, while pathological gamblers viewed stimuli of high personal relevance, we found decreased neuronal activit

SUBMITTER: de Greck M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6871181 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature