Common and differential brain abnormalities in gambling disorder subtypes based on risk attitude

Abstract

Studying brain abnormalities in behavioral addiction including GD enables us to exclude possible confounding effects of exposure to neurotoxic substances, which should provide important insight that can lead to a better understanding of addiction per se. There have been a few brain structural magnetic resonance imaging studies for GD, although the results have been inconsistent. On the other hand, GD was suggested to be a heterogeneous disorder in terms of risk attitude. We aimed to examine the heterogeneity of GD by combining a behavioral economics task and voxel-based morphometry. Thirty-six male GD patients and 36 healthy male control subjects underwent a task for estimation of loss aversion, which can assess risk attitude in real-life decision-making. The GD patients were divided into two groups based on their level of loss aversion, low and high. While both groups showed common gray matter volume reduction in the left supramarginal gyrus and bilateral posterior cerebellum, high loss-aversion GD showed pronounced reduction in the left posterior cerebellum and additional reduction in the bilateral medial orbitofrontal cortex. Our study suggests that the heterogeneity of GD is underpinned at the brain structural level. This result might be useful for understanding neurobiological mechanisms and for the establishment of precise treatment strategies for GD.

Amygdala volume is associated with risky probability cognition in gambling disorder

“…; Takeuchi et al . ). One principal component of the prospect theory is the probability weighting function.…”

Neural substrates of self‐ and external‐preoccupation: A voxel‐based morphometry study

“…The behavior exhibited by such people is thought to be analogous to behavioral addiction, such as gambling or internet addiction. A recent neuroimaging study reported that gambling disorder patients showed reduced gray matter volume (GMV) in the left supramarginal gyrus and bilateral posterior cerebellum compared to healthy controls (Takeuchi, Tsurumi et al, ). Similarly, subjects with Internet addiction disorder showed GMV reduction in the anterior cingulate cortex, supplementary motor area, cerebellum, insula, and inferior temporal gyrus (Weinstein, Livny, & Weizman, for review).…”

“…The behavior exhibited by such people is thought to be analogous to behavioral addiction, such as gambling or internet addiction. A recent neuroimaging study reported that gambling disorder patients showed reduced gray matter volume (GMV) in the left supramarginal gyrus and bilateral posterior cerebellum compared to healthy controls (Takeuchi, Tsurumi et al, 2017).…”

Altered orbitofrontal sulcogyral patterns in gambling disorder: a multicenter study

“…While a few studies have reported decreased OFC gray matter volume [13][14][15] and decreased cortical thickness 16 in pathological gamblers compared with healthy controls, other studies have failed to report significant group differences [17][18][19][20] . These inconsistencies might reflect the influence of factors such as age, comorbidities and head motion acting as confounds on structural brain measures 21 , as well as the heterogeneity existing among gamblers, as suggested by a recent study which found decreased OFC gray matter volume specifically in gamblers showing low risk-taking 22 . As a matter of fact, structural abnormalities observed in pathological gamblers are less consistent and of more modest magnitude than those reported in substance addiction 19,20,23 .…”