Disordered gambling: the evolving concept of behavioral addiction.

This is the final version, published by Wiley in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12558/abstract).The reclassification of gambling disorder within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) addictions category marks an important step for addiction science. The similarities between gambling disorder and the substance use disorders have been well documented. As gambling is unlikely to exert actively damaging effects on the brain, the cognitive sequelae of gambling disorder may provide insights into addictive vulnerabilities; this idea is critically evaluated in light of recent structural imaging data. The second part of the review analyzes a fundamental question of how a behavior can become addictive in the absence of exogenous drug stimulation. The relative potency of drug and nondrug rewards is considered, alongside evidence that cognitive distortions in the processing of chance (for example, the illusion of control and the gambler's fallacy) may constitute an important added ingredient in gambling. Further understanding of these mechanisms at neural and behavioral levels will be critical for the classification of future behavioral addictions, and I consider the current research data for obesity and binge eating, compulsive shopping, and internet gaming disorder

Session 2-1-C: Gambling distortions and the brain reward system

Impulsive choice in PG as possible index of vmPFC dysfunction Functional imaging of gambling near-misses Gambling distortions following brain injury (ventromedial PFC vs insula damage

A mechanochemical model for normal and abnormal dermal wound repair

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Commentary on Dixon et al. (2014): understanding the abuse liability of modern electronic gaming machines.

This is the author accepted manuscript of a non-peer reviewed letter. The final version is available from Wiley-Blackwell via http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/add.12697. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving

Characterization of seediness attributes of blackberry genotypes

Fresh market blackberries can feel “seedy” when consumed. This “seediness” is associated with the presence of pyrenes which are comprised of a single seed enclosed in an endocarp. Small pyrene size

Disappointment and regret enhance corrugator reactivity in a gambling task.

This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12371This study investigated how the corrugator and zygomaticus respond to decision outcomes (i.e., gains and losses). We used a gambling task in which participants were presented with obtained followed by non-obtained outcomes. Activity at the corrugator site was sensitive to decision outcomes, such that higher obtained losses (disappointment) and higher non-obtained gains (regret) both heightened corrugator reactivity. Activity at the zygomaticus site was not responsive to obtained or non-obtained outcomes, but did show sensitivity to emotional images in the same participants, in the form of a positive linear relationship with self-reported emotional valence. Corrugator activity was negatively related to emotional valence. The findings indicate the sensitivity of corrugator to objective decision outcomes and also counterfactual comparisons, highlighting the utility of facial electromyography in research on decision making and gambling behavior.RCUK, Wellcome, Othe

Reply to: Systematic Overestimation of Reflection Impulsivity in the Information Sampling Task

To the Editor: Impulsivity, a psychological construct comprising both motor and cognitive factors, is thought to underlie important interindividual differences in health and disease (1). In particular, reflection impulsivity, which refers to the tendency to gather and evaluate information before decision making (2), has been implicated in many psychiatric and neurological disorders (3, 4, 5). One of the standard tasks for measuring reflection impulsivity in healthy and clinical populations is the Information Sampling Task (IST), designed by Clark et al. (3) and included in the widely used Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) (6). In this CANTAB version of the IST, participants sample a variable amount of information about an uncertain outcome before making a decision. The amount of information sampled before the decision gives a measure of participants’ reflection impulsivity. In this correspondence, we show that the calculation of the IST’s main outcome measure, P(correct), is based on incorrect statistical inference, resulting in systematic overestimation of participants’ reflection impulsivity and potentially inflated type II error rates. This might affect the results of numerous recent psychopharmacological, neuropsychological, and psychiatric publications that have used the IST (4, 5, 7).This work was supported by a Strategic Research Initiative Grant (to CM) from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (Grant No. APP1021973 to MY

Pareto effects in the eCasino: differences across online products and links with self-exclusion

Consumption of many goods adheres to the Pareto rule (or 80:20 law) that the 20% most engaged consumers generate 80% of revenue. Using a dataset from the eCasino section of the provincial online gambling platform in British Columbia, Canada, we recently observed that Pareto values exceeded the conventional 80:20 ratio, with the top 20% generating ~92% of bets and ~90% of revenue (Deng, Lesch & Clark, 2021 Addictive Behaviors 120: 106968). In this presentation, we will examine how these effects vary across different gambling product types within the eCasino: online slot machine games, table games, video poker, and other probability games. As a marker of likely gambling harm, we test rates of enrolment in Voluntary Self-Exclusion (VSE). The dataset comprises 30,920 account holders who placed at least one bet on the platform in 2014-2015, comprising over half a billion individual bets. Across the four product types, Pareto values indicated greatest concentration for video poker (98%) and lowest for slot machines (89%). We also observe higher levels of VSE in the top 20% compared to the remaining 80% (13% vs 7%) with some differences across products. Statement of Importance: As online gambling expands, behavioural tracking offers a promising technique for detecting risk, but limited work has examined behavioural markers across different online gambling products. We examine concentrations of consumption using the Pareto rule across 4 different product types in an online casino, and associations with gambling self-exclusion

Psychophysiological arousal and inter- and intraindividual differences in risk-sensitive decision making.

This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12627The current study assessed peripheral responses during decision making under explicit risk, and tested whether intraindividual variability in choice behavior can be explained by fluctuations in peripheral arousal. Electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate (HR) were monitored in healthy volunteers (N = 68) during the Roulette Betting Task. In this task, participants were presented with risky gambles to bet on, with the chances of winning varying across trials. Hierarchical Bayesian analyses demonstrated that EDA and HR acceleration responses during the decision phase were sensitive to the chances of winning. Interindividual differences in this peripheral reactivity during risky decision making were related to trait sensitivity to punishment and trait sensitivity to reward. Moreover, trial-by-trial variation in EDA and HR acceleration responses predicted a small portion of intraindividual variability in betting choices. Our results show that psychophysiological responses are sensitive to explicit risk and can help explain intraindividual heterogeneity in choice behavior.This work was completed within the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, supported by a consortium award from the Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust. The Centre for Gambling Research at UBC is supported by funding from the British Columbia Lottery Corporation and the Province of British Columbia government