Cognition and Brain Plasticity Group, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain.
Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2019 Dec;19(6):1509-1520. doi: 10.3758/s13415-019-00715-1.
Gambling behavior presents a broad variety of individual differences, with a continuum ranging from nongamblers to pathological gamblers. The reward network has been proposed to be critical in gambling behavior, but little is known about the behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying individual differences that depend on gambling preference. The main goals of the present study were to explore brain oscillatory responses to gambling outcomes in regular gamblers and to assess differences between strategic gamblers, nonstrategic gamblers, and nongamblers. In all, 54 healthy volunteers participated in the study. Electroencephalography was recorded while participants were playing a slot machine task that delivered win, near-miss, and full-miss outcomes. Behaviorally, regular gamblers selected a larger percentage of risky bets, especially when they could select the image to play. The time-frequency results showed larger oscillatory theta power increases to near-misses and increased beta power to win outcomes for regular gamblers, as compared to nongamblers. Moreover, theta oscillatory activity after wins was only increased in nonstrategic gamblers, revealing differences between the two groups of gamblers. The present results reveal differences between regular gamblers and nongamblers in both their behavioral and neural responses to gambling outcomes. Moreover, the results suggest that different brain oscillatory mechanisms might underlie the studied gambling profiles, which might have implications for both basic and clinical studies.
赌博行为表现出广泛的个体差异，从非赌徒到病态赌徒，呈连续谱分布。奖励网络被认为在赌博行为中至关重要，但对于依赖赌博偏好的个体差异的行为和神经机制知之甚少。本研究的主要目的是探索经常赌博者对赌博结果的脑振荡反应，并评估策略性赌博者、非策略性赌博者和非赌博者之间的差异。共有 54 名健康志愿者参与了这项研究。参与者在玩老虎机任务时记录了脑电图，该任务提供了赢、近失和全失的结果。行为上，经常赌博者选择了更大比例的高风险赌注，尤其是当他们可以选择要玩的图像时。时频结果表明，与非赌博者相比，经常赌博者在近失时的θ功率增加更大，在赢时的β功率增加更大。此外，仅在非策略性赌博者中，赢后的θ振荡活动增加，这揭示了两组赌博者之间的差异。本研究结果揭示了经常赌博者和非赌博者在赌博结果的行为和神经反应方面的差异。此外，研究结果表明，不同的脑振荡机制可能是研究中赌博特征的基础，这可能对基础和临床研究都有意义。
