Risk assessment and reward processing in problem gambling investigated by event-related potentials and fMRI-constrained source analysis

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Abstract

Background

The temporo-spatial dynamics of risk assessment and reward processing in problem gamblers with a focus on an ecologically valid design has not been examined previously.

Methods

We investigated risk assessment and reward processing in 12 healthy male occasional gamblers (OG) and in 12 male problem gamblers (PG) with a combined EEG and fMRI approach to identify group-differences in successively activated brain regions during two stages within a quasi-realistic blackjack game.

Results

Both groups did not differ in reaction times but event-related potentials in PG and OG produced significantly different amplitudes in middle and late time-windows during high-risk vs. low-risk decisions. Applying an fMRI-constrained regional source model during risk assessment resulted in larger source moments in PG in the high-risk vs. low-risk comparison in thalamic, orbitofrontal and superior frontal activations within the 600-800 ms time window. During reward processing, PG showed a trend to enhanced negativity in an early time window (100-150 ms) potentially related to higher rostral anterior cingulate activity and a trend to centro-parietal group-differences in a later time window (390-440 ms) accompanied by increased superior-frontal (i.e., premotor-related) source moments in PG vs. OG.

Conclusions

We suggest that problem gambling is characterized by stronger cue-related craving during risk assessment. Reward processing is associated with early affective modulation followed by increased action preparation for ongoing gambling in PG.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12888-014-0229-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Related collections

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Author and article information

Contributors

Stephan F Miedl: miedl@uni-bremen.de

Thorsten Fehr: fehr@uni-bremen.de

Manfred Herrmann: manfred.herrmann@uni-bremen.de

Gerhard Meyer: gerhard.meyer@uni-bremen.de

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Psychiatry

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Psychiatry

Title: BMC Psychiatry

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1471-244X

Publication date (Electronic): 10 August 2014

Publication date PMC-release: 10 August 2014

Publication date Collection: 2014

Volume: 14

Issue: 1

Electronic Location Identifier: 229

Affiliations

[ ]Department of Neuropsychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, Center for Cognitive Sciences (ZKW), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

[ ]Center for Advanced Imaging - CAI Bremen, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

[ ]Institute of Psychology and Cognition Research, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

[ ]Department of Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy and Health Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

[ ]Department of Neurology II, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany

Article

Publisher ID: 229

DOI: 10.1186/s12888-014-0229-4

PMC ID: 4149195

PubMed ID: 25108447

SO-VID: e968cdbb-95e5-4e78-8997-7b9aaf51e57d

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.