Here’s why gambling becomes an addiction

Here’s why gambling becomes an addiction

FPJ BureauUpdated: Saturday, June 01, 2019, 07:26 AM IST
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Washington : A new research has revealed one of the explanations of why the gambling becomes an addiction, says ANI.

Lead researcher Inge Mick at the ECNP Congress in Berlin said that from their work, they can say two things, firstly, the brains of pathological gamblers respond differently to this stimulation than the brains of healthy volunteers and secondly, it seems that pathological gamblers just don’t get the same feeling of euphoria as do healthy volunteers.

Mick added that this is the first Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging study to look at the involvement of the opioid system,  which is naturally present in human brain, in pathological gambling, which is a behavioural addiction.

Mick continued that looking at previous work on other addictions, such as alcoholism, they anticipated that pathological gamblers would have increased opiate receptors which they did not find, but they did find the expected blunted change in endogenous opioids from an amphetamine challenge.

Mick further added that these findings suggest the involvement of the opioid system in pathological gambling and that it may differ from addiction to substances such as alcohol and they hope that in the long run this can help them to develop new approaches to treat pathological gambling.

Wim van den Brink, Chair of the Scientific Committee for the Berlin Congress, concluded that at the moment, they found that treatment with opioid antagonists such as naltrexone and nalmefene seem to have a positive effect in the treatment of pathological gambling, and that the best results of these medications are obtained in those problem gamblers with a family history of alcohol dependence.

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