Gambling, alcohol, drug addictions share brain circuitry: UBC
Gambling addicts are being given a drug that curbs alcohol and heroin cravings in an experiment conducted by researchers at UBC’s Centre for Gambling Research.
Eve Limbrick-Oldfield and her colleagues are investigating the effect of Naltrexone on brain structures related to cravings in people with a gambling disorder.
“Naltrexone is mostly used to treat alcohol addiction and it’s certainly effective in some people, though it’s not universally effective,” she said. “The same is probably true for gambling disorders.”
The experiment is based on the findings of a study published this week in the journal Translational Psychiatry that showed considerable overlap in the neural circuitry of drug cravings and problem gambling.
“The insula has been identified as a key structure in craving for drugs and alcohol,” said Limbrick-Oldfield, a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of B.C. “We’ve shown that the insula is also involved in behavioural addictions like problem gambling.”
Addictions of many kinds appear to share some important circuitry.
Drug addicts show increased activity in the same structures as gamblers when shown drug-related cues, while smokers who suffer damage to the insula lose the urge to light up.
For the published study, 19 people with gambling disorder and 19 healthy control subjects were given an MRI brain scan while looking at images related to gambling and neutral images. The gamblers reported increased craving when viewing images related to their gaming preference, such as roulette wheels or slot machines.
They also showed increased activity in parts of the frontal cortex and the insula when viewing gambling images, compared with control subjects.
“In fact, the higher the craving reported by the subject, the more active the insula was,” she said.
The casino experience and casino advertising entice people with much richer cues than the experiment, from video images and flashing lights to sounds associated with gambling, all designed to elicit a potent response, she noted.
“We just showed photographs and we still got this strong response,” said Limbrick-Oldfield.
In the Naltrexone study now underway, people with a gambling disorder are being given the drug or a placebo and shown images specific to their gaming preference to see if the drug dampens the response in the insula.
“We’ve found a biological mechanism (neural activity) that we can measure, so we can now use this to see how effective treatments are,” she said.