Neurobiologische Grundlagen der Suchterkrankung

Pathological gambling shares similarities with drug dependence including features of tolerance withdrawal and diminished control. In analogy to drug dependence it has been speculated that the underlying pathology includes a sensitivity reduction of the reward system to natural reinforcers. We tested this hypothesis by studying pathological gamblers and healthy controls during a simple gambling task and fMRI. The simple main effect of winning versus losing showed highly significant activation in the ventral striatum for patients and controls. Based on these results we further investigated the differences between…