Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience and Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.
Neuroscience Institute, Christian-Doppler Medical Centre, Paracelsus Medical University Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.
Addict Biol. 2024 May;29(5):e13396. doi: 10.1111/adb.13396.
Impaired decision-making is often displayed by individuals suffering from gambling disorder (GD). Since there are a variety of different phenomena influencing decision-making, we focused in this study on the effects of GD on neural and behavioural processes related to loss aversion and choice difficulty. Behavioural responses as well as brain images of 23 patients with GD and 20 controls were recorded while they completed a mixed gambles task, where they had to decide to either accept or reject gambles with different amounts of potential gain and loss. We found no behavioural loss aversion in either group and no group differences regarding loss and gain-related choice behaviour, but there was a weaker relation between choice difficulty and decision time in patients with GD. Similarly, we observed no group differences in processing of losses or gains, but choice difficulty was weaker associated with brain activity in the right anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex in patients with GD. Our results showed for the first time the effects of GD on neural processes related to choice difficulty. In addition, our findings on choice difficulty give new insights on the psychopathology of GD and on neural processes related to impaired decision-making in GD.
赌博障碍（GD）患者经常表现出决策受损。由于有多种不同的现象会影响决策，因此我们在本研究中专注于 GD 对与损失厌恶和选择难度相关的神经和行为过程的影响。当 23 名 GD 患者和 20 名对照组参与者完成混合赌博任务时，记录了他们的行为反应和大脑图像，在该任务中，他们必须决定是接受还是拒绝具有不同潜在收益和损失的赌博。我们在两组中均未发现行为性损失厌恶，并且在损失和收益相关的选择行为方面没有组间差异，但是 GD 患者的选择难度与决策时间之间的关系较弱。同样，我们没有观察到处理损失或收益方面的组间差异，但是在 GD 患者中，选择难度与右侧前脑岛和前扣带皮层的大脑活动的相关性较弱。我们的研究结果首次表明 GD 对与选择难度相关的神经过程的影响。此外，我们在选择难度方面的发现为 GD 的精神病理学以及 GD 中受损决策的神经过程提供了新的见解。
