Tobacco Images Choice and Its Association with Craving and Dependence in People who Smoke Cigarettes.

INTRODUCTION: Increased salience of drug-related cues over non-drug reinforcers can drive drug use and contribute to tobacco use disorder (TUD). An important scientific and clinical goal is to effectively measure this elevated drug-seeking behavior in TUD. However, most TUD assessments rely on self-reported cravings and cigarette consumption, not providing an objective measure of the impact of drug-cues on biasing behavior towards drugs. The probabilistic image choice (PIC) task investigates the choice of viewing drug-related pictures as compared to other salient pictures (e.g., pleasant and unpleasant). This study aimed to develop and validate the PIC task for TUD and evaluate the associations between behavioral choice and tobacco craving, daily cigarette consumption, quit attempts and motivation to quit, and nicotine dependence (the Fagerström score). METHODS: We recruited 468 smokers and 121 nonsmokers using the Prolific online platform. Participants performed the PIC task twice (at a one-month interval) and completed other measures relevant to TUD. RESULTS: compared to nonsmokers, tobacco smokers selected to view significantly more tobacco images and less pleasant (non-drug reinforcer) images, a profile that remained stable at retest. Individual differences in choice of tobacco as compared to pleasant images on the PIC task were associated with craving but not with the other tobacco dependence measures, suggesting that the task may serve as a behavioral proxy measure of drug "wanting" rather than of cumulative nicotine exposure or physical dependence. CONCLUSIONS: these results suggest that the PIC task can be a valuable tool for objectively assessing craving-associated tobacco seeking in TUD. IMPLICATIONS SECTION: which should provide a brief description about what the study addsMost of the current measures of tobacco use disorder (TUD) rely on self-reports of consumption, dependence and craving and do not take into consideration the role of drug-related cues in driving tobacco seeking. This study shows that the probabilistic image choice (PIC) task provides an objective, reliable proxy measure of tobacco image seeking behavior in people who smoke cigarettes that is linked to craving (desire) for smoking but not to other measures of TUD. Therefore, the PIC task may be a useful complementary tool for the classification, diagnosis, and prognosis of TUD.

Psilocybin-assisted therapy for severe alcohol use disorder: protocol for a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, 7-month parallel-group phase II superiority trial.

BACKGROUND: A significant number of individuals with alcohol use disorder remain unresponsive to currently available treatments, which calls for the development of new alternatives. In parallel, psilocybin-assisted therapy for alcohol use disorder has recently yielded promising preliminary results. Building on extant findings, the proposed study is set to evaluate the feasibility and preliminary clinical efficacy of psilocybin-assisted therapy when incorporated as an auxiliary intervention during inpatient rehabilitation for severe alcohol use disorder. Moreover, it intends to pinpoint the modifications in the two core neurocognitive systems underscored by dual-process models of addiction. METHODS: In this double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, 7-month parallel-group phase II superiority trial, 62 participants aged 21-64 years will be enrolled to undergo psilocybin-assisted therapy as part of a 4-week inpatient rehabilitation for severe alcohol use disorder. The experimental group will receive a high dose of psilocybin (30 mg), whereas the control group will receive an active placebo dose of psilocybin (5 mg), both within the context of a brief standardized psychotherapeutic intervention drawing from key elements of acceptance and commitment therapy. The primary clinical outcome is the between-group difference regarding the change in percentage of heavy drinking days from baseline to four weeks posthospital discharge, while safety and feasibility metrics will also be reported as primary outcomes. Key secondary assessments include between-group differences in terms of changes in (1) drinking behavior parameters up to six months posthospital discharge, (2) symptoms of depression, anxiety, trauma, and global functioning, (3) neuroplasticity and key neurocognitive mechanisms associated with addiction, and (4) psychological processes and alcohol-related parameters. DISCUSSION: The discussion outlines issues that might arise from our design. TRIAL REGISTRATION: EudraCT 2022-002369-14 and NCT06160232.

The Role of the Posterior Cerebellum in Dysfunctional Social Sequencing.

Recent advances in social neuroscience have highlighted the critical role of the cerebellum in social cognition, and especially the posterior cerebellum. Studies have supported the view that the posterior cerebellum builds internal action models of our social interactions to predict how other people's actions will be executed and what our most likely responses are to these actions. This mechanism allows to better anticipate action sequences during social interactions in an automatic and intuitive way and to fine-tune these anticipations, making it easier to understand other's social behaviors and mental states (e.g., beliefs, intentions, traits). In this paper, we argue that the central role of the posterior cerebellum in identifying and automatizing social action sequencing provides a fruitful starting point for investigating social dysfunctions in a variety of clinical pathologies, such as autism, obsessive-compulsive and bipolar disorder, depression, and addiction. Our key hypothesis is that dysfunctions of the posterior cerebellum lead to under- or overuse of inflexible social routines and lack of plasticity for learning new, more adaptive, social automatisms. We briefly review past research supporting this view and propose a program of research to test our hypothesis. This approach might alleviate a variety of mental problems of individuals who suffer from inflexible automatizations that stand in the way of adjustable and intuitive social behavior, by increasing posterior cerebellar plasticity using noninvasive neurostimulation or neuro-guided training programs.

Reduced calibration between subjective and objective measures of episodic future thinking in alcohol use disorder.

BACKGROUND: A reduced capacity to mentally simulate future scenarios could be of clinical importance in alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying episodic future thinking (EFT) impairment in AUD. METHODS: We tested patients with severe AUD using two measures of EFT: the individual's own subjective experience of their imaginings (phenomenology) and the objective number of details included in imagined events, as assessed by an independent observer (examination). The comparison between the two measures allowed us to investigate the extent to which the subjective and objective characteristics of EFT are calibrated in healthy and AUD participants matched for age, education, and gender. The possible impact of cognitive functioning and disturbed mood on EFT measures was also investigated. RESULTS: In terms of objective details of EFT, patients with AUD (n = 40) generated fewer episodic components and more non-episodic components than control participants (n = 40), even when controlling for cognitive functioning. However, self-ratings of phenomenological characteristics indicated that participants with AUD perceived imagined future events at a similar level of detail as control participants. Additionally, there was a significant correlation between objective and subjective measures in healthy individuals but not in the AUD group. A higher depression score in the AUD group was not associated with the EFT measures. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest a distorted self-assessment of the richness of imagined future events in individuals with AUD. We discuss these apparent limitations in metacognitive abilities and verbal descriptions of imagined events among individuals with AUD and their clinical implications.

Distinct Whole-Body Movements in Response to Alcohol and Sexual Content in Alcohol Use Disorder.

BACKGROUND: Spontaneous motor responses of approach and avoidance toward stimuli are important in characterizing psychopathological conditions, including alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, divergent results have been reported, possibly due to confounded parameters (e.g., using a symbolic vs. a sensorimotor task, implementation of approach-avoidance as a measure vs. a manipulation). METHODS: We studied whole-body/posturometric changes by using a sensorimotor measure relying on embodied cognition principles to assess forward (approach) and backward (avoidance) spontaneous leaning movements. Over a 12-second period, 51 male patients with AUD and 29 male control participants were instructed to stand still in response to both alcohol and sexual visual content. Patients with AUD were then divided into "abstainers" and "relapsers," depending on their continuous abstinence at 2 weeks postdischarge (obtained via a telephone follow-up interview). The effects of the group, the stimulus type, the experimental period, and their interactions on the posturometric changes were tested using mixed Analyses of variance (ANOVAs), with a significance threshold set at 0.05. RESULTS: Contrary to our expectations, patients and controls did not show significant difference in their forward/backward micromovements while passively viewing alcohol or sexual content (p > 0.1). However, in line with our hypothesis, patients who relapsed several weeks following discharge from the rehabilitation program were significantly more reactive and more likely to lean back during the first seconds of viewing alcohol cues (p = 0.002). Further, "relapsers" were more likely to lean forward during exposure to sexual content than participants who remained abstinent (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Among individuals with AUD, there are distinct pattern of spontaneous movements that differentiate "abstainers" and "relapsers," findings that can be understood in light of existing data and theories on action tendencies.

Development of a Contextualized Version of the Multiple Errands Test for People with Substance Dependence.

BACKGROUND: Substance dependence is associated with deficits in several areas of executive functioning, such as planning and multitasking. Traditional tests of executive functioning have been criticized for their low ecological validity. Shallice and Burgess (1991) developed the Multiple Errands Test (MET), where participants are required to perform multiple tasks in a real-world setting. In this study, we aimed to adapt the MET for use in populations with substance dependence. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to: (1) examine the applicability of a contextualized version of the Multiple Errands Test, namely, the Multiple Errands Test - Contextualized Version (MET-CV); (2) study the testing context reliability and convergent validity of MET-CV scores; (3) compare the performance of people with substance dependence to a control group. METHODS: Data were collected from 60 participants with substance dependence and 30 healthy controls. Both groups performed a neuropsychological assessment, which consisted of the MET-CV and traditional neuropsychological tests (Letter Number Sequencing, Zoo Map Test, Revised Strategy Application Test, Information Sampling Test, Stockings of Cambridge). RESULTS: The MET-CV has adequate testing context reliability and moderate convergent validity relative to traditional planning measures. People with substance dependence (PWSD) showed significant deficits in executive function tests compared to healthy controls, most notably on the MET-CV rather than on traditional neuropsychological tests. CONCLUSIONS: The MET-CV can be feasibly applied in the context of therapeutic communities treatment in PWSD. The MET-CV showed adequate reliability and validity, and detected planning deficits in PWSD. (JINS, 2018, 24, 347-359).

On the Processes Underlying the Relationship Between Alexithymia and Gambling Severity.

A great number of individuals with persistent problematic gambling behavior exhibit alexithymic tendencies, greater impulsivity, impaired working memory and poor mood. However, the relationship between these cognitive, affective and personality factors in problem gambling remains poorly understood. Our aim was to investigate multiple pathways of the alexithymia and problem gambling relationship. One hundred and six male subjects with different levels of gambling problem severity were recruited. Alexithymia, impulsivity and verbal working memory were evaluated, and their relationships to disordered gambling was examined by means of a path analysis. Results indicate that alexithymia is related to an increase in the severity of gambling indirectly, i.e., through distress severity. In addition, a rise of alexithymic tendencies was also associated with problem gambling severity through enhanced impulsivity that directly increased distress. Working memory capacity failed to significantly impact our path model. Overall, our findings contribute a new finding to the literature by highlighting the importance of alexithymia, in addition to impulsivity, in the understanding of gambling problem severity and its clinical course.

Future-oriented mental time travel in individuals with disordered gambling.

This study investigated the ability of individuals with disordered gambling to imagine future events. Problem gamblers (n=35) and control participants (n=35) were asked to imagine positive and negative future events for three temporal distances (one week, one year, 5-10years). Then, a variety of phenomenological aspects of their future thoughts (e.g., sensory and contextual details, autonoetic consciousness) were rated. Compared to control subjects, problem gamblers generated fewer positive and negative events across all temporal distances, an impairment that was correlated to verbal fluency scores. Furthermore, problem gamblers rated imagined events as containing fewer sensory and contextual details, and lacking autonoetic consciousness. These findings demonstrate that problem gambling is associated with a reduced future-oriented mental time travel ability and, in particular, with diminished autonoetic consciousness when imagining future events.

Increased ventral-striatal activity during monetary decision making is a marker of problem poker gambling severity.

The aim of this study was to examine the impact of different neural systems on monetary decision making in frequent poker gamblers, who vary in their degree of problem gambling. Fifteen frequent poker players, ranging from non-problem to high-problem gambling, and 15 non-gambler controls were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while performing the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). During IGT deck selection, between-group fMRI analyses showed that frequent poker gamblers exhibited higher ventral-striatal but lower dorsolateral prefrontal and orbitofrontal activations as compared with controls. Moreover, using functional connectivity analyses, we observed higher ventral-striatal connectivity in poker players, and in regions involved in attentional/motor control (posterior cingulate), visual (occipital gyrus) and auditory (temporal gyrus) processing. In poker gamblers, scores of problem gambling severity were positively associated with ventral-striatal activations and with the connectivity between the ventral-striatum seed and the occipital fusiform gyrus and the middle temporal gyrus. Present results are consistent with findings from recent brain imaging studies showing that gambling disorder is associated with heightened motivational-reward processes during monetary decision making, which may hamper one's ability to moderate his level of monetary risk taking.

Effect of casino-related sound, red light and pairs on decision-making during the Iowa gambling task.

Casino venues are often characterized by "warm" colors, reward-related sounds, and the presence of others. These factors have always been identified as a key factor in energizing gambling. However, few empirical studies have examined their impact on gambling behaviors. Here, we aimed to explore the impact of combined red light and casino-related sounds, with or without the presence of another participant, on gambling-related behaviors. Gambling behavior was estimated with the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). Eighty non-gamblers participants took part in one of four experimental conditions (20 participants in each condition); (1) IGT without casino-related sound and under normal (white) light (control), (2) IGT with combined casino-related sound and red light (casino alone), (3) IGT with combined casino-related sound, red light and in front of another participant (casino competition-implicit), and (4) IGT with combined casino-related sound, red light and against another participant (casino competition-explicit). Results showed that, in contrast to the control condition, participants in the three "casino" conditions did not exhibit slower deck selection reaction time after losses than after rewards. Moreover, participants in the two "competition" conditions displayed lowered deck selection reaction time after losses and rewards, as compared with the control and the "casino alone" conditions. These findings suggest that casino environment may diminish the time used for reflecting and thinking before acting after losses. These findings are discussed along with the methodological limitations, potential directions for future studies, as well as implications to enhance prevention strategies of abnormal gambling.

Impaired decision-making under risk in individuals with alcohol dependence.

BACKGROUND: Alcohol dependence is associated with poor decision-making under ambiguity, that is, when decisions are to be made in the absence of known probabilities of reward and loss. However, little is known regarding decisions made by individuals with alcohol dependence in the context of known probabilities (decision under risk). In this study, we investigated the relative contribution of these distinct aspects of decision-making to alcohol dependence. METHODS: Thirty recently detoxified and sober asymptomatic alcohol-dependent individuals and 30 healthy control participants were tested for decision-making under ambiguity (using the Iowa Gambling Task[IGT]) and decision-making under risk (using the Cups Task and Coin Flipping Task). We also tested their capacities for working memory storage (digit span forward) and dual tasking (operation span task). RESULTS: Compared to healthy control participants, alcohol-dependent individuals made disadvantageous decisions on the IGT, reflecting poor decisions under ambiguity. They also made more risky choices on the Cups and Coin Flipping Tasks reflecting poor decision-making under risk. In addition, alcohol-dependent participants showed some working memory impairments, as measured by the dual tasking, and the degree of this impairment correlated with high-risk decision-making, thus suggesting a relationship between processes subserving working memory and risky decisions. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that alcohol-dependent individuals are impaired in their ability to decide optimally in multiple facets of uncertainty (i.e., both risk and ambiguity) and that at least some aspects of these deficits are linked to poor working memory processes.

Why adolescents are at risk of misusing alcohol and gambling.

AIMS: The aim of the study was to explore the reasons for alcohol misuse and other risk-taking behaviours in adolescence. METHODS: Narrative review. RESULTS: Vulnerable adolescents make suboptimal addictive-related choices in the period of initiation of alcohol use and gambling, which is also a period of cognitive and brain development, and in health behaviours. Hyperactive response to rewards as well as possibly hypoactive responses to punishments combined with weaknesses in the abilities to regulate strong impulses results in greater risk of alcohol and gambling misuse. CONCLUSION: Abnormal patterns of alcohol consumption (e.g. binge drinking) could dramatically reinforce this disequilibrium by enhancing salience for alcohol and associated information and compromising self-regulatory processes. There are some preventive and therapeutic cognitive training strategies that can strengthen willpower in adolescents.

Impaired metacognitive capacities in individuals with problem gambling.

Impaired insight into behavior may be one of the clinical characteristics of pathological gambling. In the present study, we tested whether the capacity to evaluate accurately the quality of one's own decisions during a non-gambling task was impaired in problem gamblers. Twenty-five problem gamblers and 25 matched healthy participants performed an artificial grammar-learning paradigm, in which the quality of choice remains uncertain throughout the task. After each trial of this task, participants had to indicate how confident they were in the grammaticality judgements using a scale ranging from 1 (low confidence) to 7 (high confidence). Results showed that (i), problem gamblers' performance on the grammaticality test was lower than controls'; (ii) there was a significant correlation between grammaticality judgments and confidence for control participants, which indicates metacognitive insight and the presence of conscious knowledge; (iii) this correlation was not significant in problem gamblers, which suggests a disconnection between performance and confidence in this group. These findings suggest that problem gamblers are impaired in their metacognitive abilities on a non-gambling task, which suggests that compulsive gambling is associated with poor insight as a general factor. Clinical interventions tailored to improve metacognition in gambling could be a fruitful avenue of research in order to prevent pathological gambling.

Tobacco Images Choice and Its Association with Craving and Dependence in Cigarette Smokers.

Introduction: Increased salience of drug-related cues over non-drug reinforcers can drive drug use and contribute to tobacco use disorder (TUD). An important scientific and clinical goal is to effectively measure this elevated drug-seeking behavior in TUD. However, most TUD assessments rely on self-reported cravings and cigarette consumption, not providing an objective measure of the impact of drug-cues on biasing behavior towards drugs. The probabilistic image choice (PIC) task investigates the choice of viewing drug-related pictures as compared to other salient pictures (e.g., pleasant and unpleasant). This study aimed to develop and validate the PIC task for TUD and evaluate the associations between behavioral choice and tobacco craving, daily cigarette consumption, quit attempts and motivation to quit, and nicotine dependence (the Fagerström score). Methods: We recruited 468 smokers and 121 nonsmokers using the Prolific online platform. Participants performed the PIC task twice (at a one-month interval) and completed other measures relevant to TUD. Results: compared to nonsmokers, tobacco smokers selected to view significantly more tobacco images and less pleasant (non-drug reinforcer) images, a profile that remained stable at retest. Individual differences in choice of tobacco as compared to pleasant images on the PIC task were associated with craving but not with the other tobacco dependence measures, suggesting that the task may serve as a behavioral proxy measure of drug "wanting" rather than of cumulative nicotine exposure or physical dependence. Conclusions: these results suggest that the PIC task can be a valuable tool for objectively assessing craving-associated tobacco seeking in TUD.

Decoding of emotional components in complex communicative situations (irony) and its relation to empathic abilities in male chronic alcoholics: an issue for treatment.

BACKGROUND: Previous research has shown that deficits in the domain of emotions strongly characterize alcoholism. Patients diagnosed with alcoholism show impairments in emotional mimic recognition, as well as in the domain of emotional prosody. These data suggest that male alcoholics might suffer from a generalized emotional impairment associated with dysfunctions in empathy. Taken altogether, those deficits might influence alcoholics' relational domain and their performance in complex communicative situations such as ironic interactions. The present study investigates the ability of chronic male alcoholics to recognize the emotional component of ironic contexts and its relation to the comprehension of ironic meaning as a function of their empathic abilities. METHODS: Forty-four male subjects participated in a story comprehension task. They were asked to read stories with either an ironic or a nonironic ending. Participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire about communicative intentions and the emotional states of the stories' characters. Moreover, the correct comprehension of the ironic meaning was assessed through a self-reported questionnaire and related to the empathy quotient (EQ) which was measured in a preexperimental phase. RESULTS: Alcoholic subjects showed a lower EQ in comparison to healthy subjects and recognized significant fewer ironic endings. Social skills results were particularly impaired. The correlation between EQ and ironic endings recognition was significant. Moreover, alcoholics showed a tendency to attribute positive emotions to both ironic and nonironic contexts, showing an opposite pattern in comparison with control subjects who tended to associate negative emotions to ironic contexts. CONCLUSIONS: The present study indicates that emotional recognition deficits that have been previously observed in chronic alcoholics extend to complex interactive contexts. This deficit is associated with a more general impairment of empathy, especially in its social skill component. Clinical implications of the present results are discussed.

Impaired self-awareness in pathological gamblers.

Lack of self-awareness of one's decisions remains an understudied and elusive topic in the addiction literature. The present study aimed at taking a first step towards addressing this difficult subject through the use of a combination of behavioral procedures. Here, we explored the association between a metacognitive process (the ability to reflect and evaluate the awareness of one's own decision) and poor performance on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) in a group of pathological gamblers (PG; n = 30), and in a comparison group (n = 35). This metacognitive process was assessed during the IGT with the post-decision wagering procedure, while a number of potential confounds (i.e., reward/loss sensitivity, dual-tasking) were controlled for. Results showed that: (1) Initial performance enhancement of the control group on IGT occurred without explicit knowledge of the task, thus confirming its implicit character; (2) compared to controls, performance of PG on the IGT failed to increase during the task; (3) taking into account increased reward sensitivity and decreased loss sensitivity as well as poorer dual-tasking in pathological gamblers, PG tended to exhibit a bias in evaluating their own performance on the IGT by maximizing their wagers independently of selecting advantageous decks. Our findings suggest that biased metacognition may affect pathological gamblers, leading to disadvantageous post-decision wagering, which is in turn linked to impaired decision making under ambiguity. Perhaps this deficit reflects the impaired insight and self-awareness that many addicts suffer from, thus providing a novel approach for capturing and measuring this impairment, and for investigating its possible causes.

A critical perspective on updating drug memories through the integration of memory editing and brain stimulation.

Addiction is a persistent, recurring condition characterized by repeated relapses despite the desire to control drug use or maintain sobriety. The attainment of abstinence is hindered by persistent maladaptive drug-associated memories, which drive drug-seeking and use behavior. This article examines the preliminary evidence supporting the combination of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques and memory editing (or reconsolidation) interventions as add-on forms of treatment for individuals with substance-related disorders (SUD). Studies have shown that NIBS can modestly reduce drug use and craving through improved cognitive control or other undetermined reasons. Memory reconsolidation, a process by which a previously consolidated memory trace can be made labile again, can potentially erase or significantly weaken SUD memories underpinning craving and the propensity for relapse. This approach conveys enthusiasm while also emphasizing the importance of managing boundary conditions and null results for interventions found on fear memory reconsolidation. Recent studies, which align with the state-dependency and activity-selectivity hypotheses, have shown that the combination of NIBS and behavioral interventions holds promise for treating SUD by reducing self-reported and physiological aspects of craving. Effective long-term outcomes for this procedure require better identification of critical memories, a deeper understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying SUD and memory reconsolidation and overcoming any boundary conditions of destabilized memories. This will enable the procedure to be personalized to the unique needs of individual patients.

Behavioural expressions of loss-chasing in gambling: A systematic scoping review.

BANERJEE Nilosmita., CHEN Zhang., CLARK Luke., NOËL Xavier. Behavioural expressions of loss-chasing in gambling: A systematic scoping review NEUROSCI BIOBEHAV REV 152(1) XXX-XXX, 2023. - Loss-chasing, the tendency to continue and/or intensify gambling following losses, is a key clinical symptom in gambling disorder and a central feature endorsed by at-risk problem gamblers. Despite its centrality, loss-chasing has been often operationalised across distinct behavioural expressions. The current systematic scoping review aimed to map the heterogeneous operationalisations of loss-chasing in the literature. The reviewed studies defined loss-chasing either between-sessions (n = 39) or within-sessions (n = 38), as a long-recognised distinction. For both categories, further behavioural expressions could be distinguished. Between-session loss-chasing was captured by endorsing an item 'returning another day/time to recoup losses', or behaviourally as the interval between successive sessions, or as increasing stakes in the next session. Within-session loss-chasing was defined as continuing and/or intensifying gambling either by increased risk-taking, stake size, or speed of play. Additionally, much heterogeneity was observed in the gambling contexts examined, the exact definition of loss, and the potential delineation of win-chasing. Open questions and future directions are discussed. Overall, this paper serves as a first step towards more conceptual clarity of loss-chasing.

A Comparative Event-Related Potentials Study between Alcohol Use Disorder, Gambling Disorder and Healthy Control Subjects through a Contextual Go/NoGo Task.

(1) Background: Inhibitory and rewarding processes that mediate attentional biases to addiction-related cues may slightly differ between patients suffering from alcohol use (AUD) or gambling (GD) disorder. (2) Methods: 23 AUD inpatients, 19 GD patients, and 22 healthy controls performed four separate Go/NoGo tasks, in, respectively, an alcohol, gambling, food, and neutral long-lasting cueing context during the recording of event-related potentials (ERPs). (3) Results: AUD patients showed a poorer inhibitory performance than controls (slower response latencies, lower N2d, and delayed P3d components). In addition, AUD patients showed a preserved inhibitory performance in the alcohol-related context (but a more disrupted one in the food-related context), while GD patients showed a specific inhibitory deficit in the game-related context, both indexed by N2d amplitude modulations. (4) Conclusions: Despite sharing common addiction-related mechanisms, AUD and GD patients showed different patterns of response to (non-)rewarding cues that should be taken into account in the therapeutic context.

Winning and losing in online gambling: Effects on within-session chasing.

The tendency to continue or intensify gambling after losing (loss-chasing) is widely regarded as a defining feature of gambling disorder. However, loss-chasing in real gambling contexts is multifaceted, and some aspects are better understood than others. Gamblers may chase losses between multiple sessions or within a single session. Furthermore, within a session, loss-chasing can be expressed in the decision of (1) when to stop, (2) how much stake to bet, and (3) the speed of play after winning and losing. Using a large player-tracking data set (>2500 players, >10 million rounds) collected from the online commercial game Mystery Arena, we examined these three behavioral expressions of within-session loss-chasing. While the first two aspects (when to stop and how much stake to bet) have been examined previously, the current research is the first large-scale study to examine the effects of wins and losses on the speed of play in real gambling. The players were additionally assigned different involvement levels by the operator based on their gambling behavior on the operator's own platform, which further allowed us to examine group differences in loss-chasing. We found that after winning, both the high- and low-involvement groups were less likely to stop, and increased the stake amount, thus showing win-chasing instead of loss-chasing in these two facets. After losing, both groups played more quickly though, which may reflect an urge to continue gambling (as an expression of loss-chasing). Wins and losses had a smaller influence on the speed of play for the high-involvement players, suggesting that they might have reduced sensitivity to wins and/or losses. Future work can further examine chasing in different gambling products and in people with gambling problems to assess the generalizability of these findings.