Green Cheryl L, Nahhas Ramzi W, Scoglio Arielle A, Elman Igor
1 Department of Psychiatry, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Wright State University , Dayton, OH, USA.
2 Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Wright State University , Dayton, OH, USA.
J Behav Addict. 2017 Mar 1;6(1):98-101. doi: 10.1556/2006.6.2017.006. Epub 2017 Mar 9.
Background Excessive gambling is considered to be a part of the addiction spectrum. Stress-like emotional states are a key feature both of pathological gambling (PG) and of substance addiction. In substance addiction, stress symptomatology has been attributed in part to "anti-reward" allostatic neuroadaptations, while a potential involvement of anti-reward processes in the course of PG has not yet been investigated. Methods To that end, individuals with PG (n = 22) and mentally healthy subjects (n = 13) were assessed for trauma exposure and post-traumatic stress symptomatology (PTSS) using the Life Events Checklist and the Civilian Mississippi Scale, respectively. Results In comparison with healthy subjects, individuals with PG had significantly greater PTSS scores including greater physiological arousal sub-scores. The number of traumatic events and their recency were not significantly different between the groups. In the PG group, greater gambling severity was associated with more PTSS, but neither with traumatic events exposure nor with their recency. Conclusions Our data replicate prior reports on the role of traumatic stress in the course of PG and extend those findings by suggesting that the link may be derived from the anti-reward-type neuroadaptation rather than from the traumatic stress exposure per se.
背景 过度赌博被认为是成瘾谱系的一部分。类似应激的情绪状态是病理性赌博（PG）和物质成瘾的关键特征。在物质成瘾中，应激症状部分归因于“抗奖赏”的适应性神经变化，而抗奖赏过程在PG病程中的潜在作用尚未得到研究。方法 为此，分别使用生活事件清单和平民密西西比量表对PG患者（n = 22）和心理健康受试者（n = 13）的创伤暴露和创伤后应激症状（PTSS）进行评估。结果 与健康受试者相比，PG患者的PTSS得分显著更高，包括更高的生理唤醒子得分。两组之间创伤事件的数量及其近期性没有显著差异。在PG组中，更高的赌博严重程度与更多的PTSS相关，但与创伤事件暴露及其近期性均无关。结论 我们的数据重复了先前关于创伤应激在PG病程中作用的报告，并通过表明这种联系可能源于抗奖赏型神经适应而非创伤应激暴露本身，扩展了这些发现。
