title: Risk-taking decisions in pathological gamblers is not a result of their impaired inhibition ability.
abstract: This work investigates whether inhibition impairments influence the decision making process in pathological gamblers (PGs). The PG (N=51) subjects performed the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT as the measure of the decision making process) and two tests of inhibition: the Stroop (interference inhibition), and the Go/NoGo (response inhibition), and were compared with demographically matched healthy subjects (N=57). Performance in the IGT block 1 and block 2 did not differ between the groups, but the differences between the PGs and healthy controls began to be significant in block 3, block 4 and block 5. PGs learned the IGT task more slowly than the healthy controls and had non-optimal outcomes (more disadvantageous choices). Impaired IGT performance in PGs was not related to an inhibition ability measured by the Stroop (interference response time) and the Go/NoGo (number of commission errors) parameters. Further controlled studies with neuroimaging techniques may help to clarify the particular brain mechanisms underlying the impaired decision making process in PGs.
authors.affiliation: Beer Yaakov Mental Health Center, Tel Aviv University, Israel. kertzman@animascan.com
authors.forename: Semion
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kertzman
authors.forename: Helena
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lidogoster
authors.forename: Anat
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Aizer
authors.forename: Moshe
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kotler
authors.forename: Pinhas N
authors.initials: PN
authors.lastname: Dannon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005715:Gambling / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012309:Risk-Taking