Institute of Psychology, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Jena, Germany.
Biol Psychiatry. 2010 Apr 15;67(8):781-3. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.11.009. Epub 2009 Dec 30.
Recent research has begun to examine the neurophysiologic basis of pathological gambling. However, direct evidence of a behavioral deficit and an accompanying neurofunctional deviation in a realistic gambling context such as Black Jack has not yet been reported.
Electroencephalogram was recorded while 20 problem gamblers and 21 control participants played a computerized version of Black Jack. Participants were asked to decide at point scores between 11 and 21 whether they wanted to take another card ("hit") to arrive closer to 21 than the opponent (simulated by computer) or not to take another card ("sit") to avoid going over 21 ("bust").
At a critical point score of 16, problem gamblers decided more often to hit despite losses due to a bust on the preceding trial, whereas control participants decided more often to sit under these conditions. Furthermore, problem gamblers showed more reward-related positive amplitudes in the event-related brain potential than control participants after successful hit decisions at 16.
Here we provide experimental evidence for high-risk taking behavior in gamblers and its correlate in event-related brain potentials. Our results suggest that high-risk-taking behavior in problem gamblers is associated with an increased reward-related neural response to infrequent successes of this behavior.
最近的研究开始探讨病理性赌博的神经生理基础。然而，在现实赌博情境（如二十一点）中，尚未有直接证据表明存在行为缺陷和伴随的神经功能偏差。
20 名问题赌徒和 21 名对照参与者在玩电脑版二十一点时记录脑电图。参与者被要求在得分在 11 到 21 之间时决定是否要再拿一张牌（“加注”），以使自己的得分比对手（由电脑模拟）更接近 21，或者不拿牌（“不拿”）以避免超过 21（“爆牌”）。
在关键得分 16 时，尽管在之前的试次中因爆牌而导致损失，问题赌徒更倾向于加注，而对照参与者在这些条件下更倾向于不拿牌。此外，在成功加注至 16 时，问题赌徒的事件相关脑电位中表现出比对照参与者更多的与奖励相关的正波幅。
我们在这里提供了赌徒高风险行为及其在事件相关脑电位中的相关性的实验证据。我们的结果表明，问题赌徒的高风险行为与这种行为的罕见成功所引起的增强的与奖励相关的神经反应有关。
