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Knowing When to Stop: The Brain Mechanisms of Chasing Losses
Abstract
Continued gambling to recover previous losses ("loss-chasing") is central to pathological gambling. However, very little is known about the neural mechanisms that mediate this behavior.
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine neural activity while healthy adult participants decided to chase losses or decided to quit gambling to prevent further losses.
Chasing losses was associated with increased activity in cortical areas linked to incentive-motivation and an expectation of reward. By contrast, quitting was associated with decreased activity in these areas but increased activity in areas associated with anxiety and conflict monitoring. Activity within the anterior cingulate cortex associated with the experience of chasing and then losing predicted decisions to stop chasing losses at the next opportunity.
Excessive loss-chasing behavior in pathological gambling might involve a failure to appropriately balance activity within neural systems coding conflicting motivational states. Similar mechanisms might underlie the loss-of-control over appetitive behaviors in other impulse control disorders.
... Previous research found that chasing is associated, among others, with impulsivity (Breen & Zuckerman, 1999), sensation seeking (Linnet, Røjskjaer, Nygaard, & Maher, 2006), increased activation in brain regions related to reward expectation (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008), low sensitivity to punishment (Kim & Lee, 2011), poor decision-making (Nigro, Ciccarelli, & Cosenza, 2018a), disinhibition (Nigro et al., 2018b), alexithymia (Bibby, 2016), deficit in mentalization (Nigro et al., 2019), and heightened levels of craving (Ciccarelli, Cosenza, D'Olimpio, Griffiths, & Nigro, 2019b). Importantly, recent research provided evidences that chasers and nonchasers represent two distinct subgroups of gamblers, over and above gambling severity (Ciccarelli, Cosenza, Griffiths, D'Olimpio, & Nigro,2019aNigro et al., 2018a, 2018b; see also Linnet et al., 2006). ...
... According to Campbell-Meiklejohn et al. (2008), loss chasing shows the expectancy of later positive outcomes and the decision to chase looks similar, at neural level, to a craving for a drug among addicts. As their findings suggest, "the decisions to chase are mediated by activity in systems that code positive incentive-value and powerful appetitive states and that dysfunction in these circuits mediates the excessive urge to chase reported by pathological gamblers" (p. ...
... Cosenza et al., 2019a;Hing, Russell, Tolchard, & Nower, 2016;Nigro et al., 2017;Raylu, Oei, Loo, & Tsai, 2016;Welte, Barnes, Tidwell, Hoffman, & Wieczorek, 2015; for reviews, see Delfabbro, Thomas, & Armstrong, 2018), boys reported significantly higher levels of gambling severity, alcohol consumption, and craving. In line with prior findings, chasing behavior did not vary by gender (Bibby, 2016;Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008;Lister, Nower, & Wohl, 2016;O'Connor & Dickerson, 2003;Worhunsky, Potenza, & Rogers, 2017) or as a function of the experimental condition Lister et al., 2016;Nigro et al., 2018a). Rather, the results of logistic regression analysis suggested that the choice to stop or continue playing depend on both a strong, urgent desire to gamble and the anticipation of immediate positive subjective experiences from gambling, whereas chasing proneness was predicted not only by anticipation and desire to gamble, but also by alcohol consumption. ...
Chasing, or continuing to gamble to recoup losses, is a behavioral marker and a diagnostic criterion for gambling disorder. Research on chasing has focused mainly on adults, whereas the analysis of chasing behavior among adolescents has not received empirical attention in the gambling literature. The aim of the present study was to first investigate the interplay between chasing behavior, craving, temporal perspective, alcohol use, and gambling severity among Italian adolescents. Three hundred and sixty-four adolescents took part in the study. Participants completed the South Oaks Gambling Screen Revised for Adolescents (SOGS-RA), the Gambling Craving Scale (GACS), the 14-item Consideration of Future Consequences scale (CFC-14), the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), and performed a computerized task assessing chasing behavior. Participants were randomly assigned to the control and the loss condition of the computerized task. Results indicated that the choice to continue playing, as well as chasing frequency did not vary as a function of experimental condition. Hierarchical logistic and linear regression analyses revealed that the decision to chase depended mostly on craving, whereas chasing propensity was affected by craving and alcohol misuse. Notably, gambling severity did not predict either the decision to chase, or the chasing persistence. The present study contributes important findings to the gambling literature, highlighting the role of craving alcohol use in facilitating the inability to stop within-sessions gambling among adolescents. These findings may provide evidence that nonchasers and chasers represent two different types of gamblers, and that the difference may be useful for targeting more effective therapies.
... Gambling problems are mediated by altered neuromodulation within mesolimbic reinforcement sites and altered neural responses to monetary rewards and gambling-related cues (Zack and Poulos 2004;Chase and Clark 2010;Balodis et al. 2012;Worhunsky et al. 2014). These dysfunctional brain responses may mediate the altered cognitions that promote gambling and, in vulnerable individuals, gambling problems (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al. 2008;Clark et al. 2009;Clark 2010). Current treatments include cognitive and/or behavioural therapies but also a variety of pharmacological options including SSRIs, mood stabilisers, atypical anti-psychotics and opioid antagonists (Grant et al. 2014). ...
... There have been limited previous studies of the pharmacological basis of within-session loss-chasing. Using an experimental model in which human volunteers chose between gambling to recover accumulating (notional) losses by doubling their stakes or 'quitting the chase', Campbell-Meiklejohn and colleagues (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al. 2008, 2011 demonstrated that loss-chasing involves dissociable roles for monoamine systems, with serotonin activity modulating the persistence of chasing behaviour, but dopamine and, in particular, D 2 /D 3 receptor (R) activity modulating the evaluation of losses worth chasing (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al. 2011Rogers 2011). Exploiting the foraging preference of animals to access food promptly (Bateson and Kacelnik 1995;Kacelnik and Bateson 1996), Rogers et al. (2013) using rats modelled within-session loss-chasing as choices between immediate food access versus delayed access to food rewards (timeouts) over successive bad choice outcomes. ...
... Human studies have attempted to parse components of gambling behaviours and there is evidence for the existence of dissociable neural systems and pharmacological substrates underlying, for example, the decision to chase losses or quit (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al. 2008, 2011. However, to our knowledge, there have been no explicit comparisons of the pharmacological mechanisms of initial decisions to gamble/quit and subsequent loss-chasing behaviour in either un-drugged or drug treated subjects. ...
RationaleProblematic patterns of gambling are characterised by loss of control and persistent gambling often to recover losses. However, little is known about the mechanisms that mediate initial choices to begin gambling and then continue to gamble in the face of losing outcomes.Objectives
These experiments first assessed gambling and loss-chasing performance under different win/lose probabilities in C57Bl/6 mice, and then investigated the effects of antagonism of 5-HT2CR with SB242084, 5-HT1AR agonism with 8-OH-DPAT and modafinil, a putative cognitive enhancer.ResultsAs seen in humans and other species, mice demonstrated the expected patterns of behaviour as the odds for winning were altered increasing gambling and loss-chasing when winning was more likely. SB242084 decreased the likelihood to initially gamble, but had no effects on subsequent gambling choices in the face of repeated losses. In contrast, 8-OH-DPAT had no effects on choosing to gamble in the first place, but once started 8-OH-DPAT increased gambling choices in a dose-sensitive manner. Modafinil effects were different to the serotonergic drugs in both decreasing the propensity to initiate gambling and chase losses.Conclusions
We present evidence for dissociable effects of systemic drug administration on different aspects of gambling behaviour. These data extend and reinforce the importance of serotonergic mechanisms in mediating discrete components of gambling behaviour. They further demonstrate the ability of modafinil to reduce gambling behaviour. Our work using a novel mouse paradigm may be of utility in modelling the complex psychological and neurobiological underpinnings of gambling problems, including the analysis of genetic and environmental factors.
... The extant literature has shown that chasing represents an important step in the development and maintenance of gambling disorder (Breen & Zuckerman, 1999;Goudriaan, Yücel, & van Holst, 2014;Lesieur, 1984; see also Corless & Dickerson, 1989;Sharpe, 2002; for a review, see Nigro, Ciccarelli, & Cosenza, 2018b), and is one of the few observable signs for disordered gambling (Gainsbury, Suhonen, & Saaststamoinen, 2014), and the only criterion of gambling addiction absent in substance use disorder (Quester & Romanczuk-Seiferth, 2015). Prior research found that chasing is associated, among others, with impulsivity (Breen & Zuckerman, 1999), sensation seeking (Linnet, Røjskjaer, Nygaard, & Maher, 2006), increased activation in brain regions related to reward expectation (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008), low sensitivity to punishment (Kim & Lee, 2011), poor decision-making (Nigro et al., 2018a), disinhibition (Nigro et al., 2018b), alexithymia (Bibby, 2016), and shortened time horizon . ...
... Given the difficulties in reproducing in the laboratory between-session chasing, as defined by Lesieur (1979) and the DSM-IV and DSM-5 criteria for disordered gambling, the few behavioral tasks devoted to assessing chasing focused on within-session chasing. With the only exception of Linnet et al. (2006), who measured episodic chasing within the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), some authors have developed or implemented ad hoc procedures for estimating within-session chasing (Bibby, 2016;Breen & Zuckerman, 1999;Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008;Lister et al., 2016;Nigro et al., 2018a;Worhunsky, Potenza, & Rogers, 2017). Although laboratory tasks have assessed chasing in quite different ways, they share the following features at least: (a) the task simulates real-life game situations in which participants are allowed to stop in any moment; (b) the game is apparently chance-based; (c) the outcomes are manipulated; (d) participants win or lose some virtual money; and (e) both the decision to chase and the number of trials played are considered variables of interest. ...
... Although the SOGS has been found to produce inflated pathological gambling estimates, it is still frequently used as a screen in experimental research (James et al., 2016). In this study, the SOGS was chosen to allow comparisons with previous researches on chasing (e.g., Breen & Zuckerman, 1999;Brevers et al., 2013Brevers et al., , 2014Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008;Linnet et al., 2006;Nigro et al., 2018aNigro et al., , 2018b. The questionnaire is composed of 20 scored items and some unscored items. ...
Background and aims:
Chasing is a behavioral marker and a diagnostic criterion for gambling disorder. Although chasing has been recognized to play a central role in gambling disorder, research on this topic is relatively scarce. This study investigated the association between chasing, alcohol consumption, and mentalization among habitual gamblers.
Method:
A total of 132 adults took part in the study. Participants were administered the South Oaks Gambling Screen, the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire, and a laboratory task assessing chasing behavior. Participants were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions (Control, Loss, and Win). To deeply investigate chasing behavior, participants were requested to indicate the reasons for stopping or continuing playing at the end of the experimental session.
Results:
Logistic regression analysis showed that the choice to stop or continue playing depended on experimental condition and alcohol use. Hierarchical linear regression indicated that chasing propensity was affected by experimental condition, alcohol consumption, and deficit in mentalization. The results of path analysis showed that hypermentalizing predicts chasing not only directly, but also indirectly via alcohol consumption.
Conclusions:
Overall, these results for the first time showed that hypermentalization plays a key role in chasing behavior over and above gambling severity. Since these findings support the idea that chasers and non-chasers are different subtypes of gamblers, clinical interventions should consider the additive role of chasing in gambling disorder.
... From a reinforcement learning perspective, where losses should yield demotivation of gambling behavior, this phenomenon cannot be so easily explained. A study by Campbell-Meiklejohn et al. [139] investigated the neural basis of loss chasing in HC subjects using fMRI. Subjects started with fictive 20,000 British Pounds. ...
... Both good and bad outcomes after chase decisions against decisions to quit (PE in general) were associated with activity in VS, putamen. Checking how negative outcomes after a chase followed by a decision to chase are different from negative outcomes after a chase followed by a decision to quit revealed increased activity in [139]. Left panel: Three different trials are displayed (from left to right). ...
... The correlation highlights the validity of the task. Reprinted from [139], Figure 1. With permission from Elsevier dACC, a known conflict monitoring area, and indicated earlier in being associated with increased propensity to quit. ...
This chapter gives an overview on neurobehavioral findings concerning gambling disorder (GD). We classify studies into classical and computational psychiatry studies and into three categories related to different symptom clusters: loss of control, craving, and neglect of other areas in life. Studies using classical analyses are those that set into relationship measured random variables by estimating their respective means, variances, and covariances. Computational psychiatry studies and computational analyses are those that explicitly assume one or several cognitive-computational processes responsible for generating the data. Analyses could involve reinforcement learning models fit to behavioral choice data or neural network models fit to brain data. Computational psychiatry aims at taking a closer look at processes underlying psychological disorders. Note that we will also use a computational psychiatry perspective when reporting on the classical neurobiological GD studies here. This means we will review primary research articles with respect to computationally relevant processes such as cue reactivity, response inhibition, gain and loss processing, uncertainty, and delay processing as well as learning from reward and punishment.
... Little is known regarding the neurobiological basis of loss-chasing. An fMRI study has shown that decision to chase or quit involves two different cortical and sub-cortical systems (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008). Another study reported that STN DBS in PD patients decreases loss-chasing behaviour first and then increases it on a second game (Rogers et al., 2011). ...
... One fMRI study carried out during loss chasing performance revealed that the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the subgenual cingulate cortex (sgACC), associated with the anticipation of positive outcomes and appetitive states, show activity when deciding to chase as compared to deciding to quit (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al. 2008). ...
The subthalamic nucleus (STN) is known to play a role in the control of impulsivity of action and in impulsivity of choice under certain conditions. In order to assess its influence on decision‐making under uncertainty, we have tested here the effects of bilateral STN lesions in rats performing a probability discounting task (PDT) and a “loss‐chasing” task, both tasks assessing risky decision under uncertainty, but one in a positive context (probability to obtain a larger reward), the other in a negative context (risk for a larger loss). The PDT measures the choice between a small certain and a large uncertain reward. Conversely, in the “loss‐chasing” task, animals choose between accepting a small certain loss versus risking a larger but uncertain penalty. The results show that STN lesions reduce risk‐taking in both the PDT and the loss‐chasing task, suggesting that STN inactivation could decrease risky decision‐making whatever the nature of the outcome in an ambiguous context. Interestingly, opposite results were found in a small number of animals for which the lesions extended to the area dorsal to the STN (in the zona incerta), such that these animals increased choice of the uncertain option in the PDT. These results confirm the specificity of STN involvement in these processes and may provide explanations for some side‐effects reported in patients when STN manipulations extend to the Zona Incerta. They also support the choice of the STN as a target for the treatment of impulse control disorders in Parkinson’s Disease and in obsessive compulsive disorders.
... People learn from experience and modulate their choices according to previous decision outcomes. Individuals tend to take more risks after losses than after wins (Ayton and Fischer, 2004;Brevers et al., 2017Brevers et al., , 2017Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008;Dong et al., 2014;Losecaat Vermeer et al., 2014;Tversky and Kahneman, 2016;Xue et al., 2011), a pattern resembling the Gambler's fallacy (GF). GF refers to a misconception that a certain random event is less likely to happen after a series of the same event. ...
... GF refers to a misconception that a certain random event is less likely to happen after a series of the same event. It should be noted that the pattern of increased risk-taking following losses and decreased risk-taking following wins is known as "loss chasing" (Brevers et al., 2017;Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008). However, considering that continued risk taking after losses has a similar pattern to the GF and arises from the GF cognitive bias (Dong et al., 2014;Xue et al., 2011), in this study, we termed this behavioral tendency as the "GF-like behavior" (Xue et al., 2011). ...
Recent studies show that people exhibit a reduced decision bias in a foreign language relative to their native language. However, the underlying mechanism remains unknown. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) combined with an even-probability gambling task in which gambling feedback was presented in either a native language or a foreign language after each decision, we assessed the neural correlates of language modulated behavioral changes in decision making. In both foreign and native language contexts, participants showed a behavioral pattern resembles the Gambler's fallacy that losing a gamble leads to more betting than winning a gamble. While there was no language difference in gambling, bilateral caudate and amygdala gain signals were exaggerated by foreign language in relative to native language, suggesting that foreign language enhanced neural responses to rewards. Moreover, the individual difference in foreign language-induced Gambler's fallacy-like decision bias was associated with activation in the right amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, as well as functional connectivity between right amygdala and right putamen/right posterior insula. Our results confirm that outcome processing in emotion-related regions may underlie individual differences in foreign language effects in judgment and decision making.
... Last, our findings of the type 2 DA neurons potentially provide insights into the neural mechanisms of psychiatric disorders in which DA is deeply involved [e.g., (56,57)]. For example, a fundamental feature of addiction is to continue to pursue a particular target despite negative consequences (57) [e.g., loss chasing in pathological gambling (58,59)]. RPE-type DA neurons may not be directly involved in the feature because they are inhibited by negative outcomes. ...
To obtain more of a particular uncertain reward, animals must learn to actively overcome the lack of reward and adjust behavior to obtain it again. The neural mechanisms underlying such coping with reward omission remain unclear. Here, we developed a task in rats to monitor active behavioral switch toward the next reward after no reward. We found that some dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area exhibited increased responses to unexpected reward omission and decreased responses to unexpected reward, following the opposite responses of the well-known dopamine neurons that signal reward prediction error (RPE). The dopamine increase reflected in the nucleus accumbens correlated with behavioral adjustment to actively overcome unexpected no reward. We propose that these responses signal error to actively cope with lack of expected reward. The dopamine error signal thus cooperates with the RPE signal, enabling adaptive and robust pursuit of uncertain reward to ultimately obtain more reward.
... There was a significant positive correlation between alexithymia and chasing loss. People with high levels of alexithymia tend to chase losses, and there are significant differences between alexithymia and non-alexithymia individuals in the neural structure of chasing losses (Bibby & Ross, 2017;Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008). However, in the alexithymia structure, in addition to externally oriented thinking, difficulty in recognizing emotion and describing emotion were associated with loss chasing (Bagby et al., 1994). ...
... Perseveration on a PRL task has been linked to lower activity in the right vlPFC after positive and negative feedback (Ruiter et al., 2008). The vmPFC, which is active in healthy participants on monetary reward tasks such as the IGT and loss-chasing tasks, is important for tracking expected reward outcomes and reward processing (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008;Li et al., 2010). In GD, however, vmPFC activation is lower than in healthy individuals on such tasks and activity has been shown to be negatively correlated with gambling severity (Habib and Dixon, 2010;Reuter et al., 2005). ...
Reinforcement learning (RL) is the process by which an animal utilises its previous experience to improve outcomes of future choices by maximising reward and minimising punishment. This thesis investigates how RL processes are altered in psychiatric disorders such as major depressive disorder (MDD) and substance use disorder (SUD). The neural basis underlying RL is investigated using brain neuroimaging techniques and translational approaches in both rats and humans. Given the importance of RL and implicated cognitive impairments in psychiatric disorders such as cognitive inflexibility, this PhD thesis sets out to integrate relevant computational and neurobiological substrates, an objective that hitherto has not been widely researched. Chapter 3 presents the findings of a longitudinal study to investigate the behavioural and neural consequences of early-life maternal separation in rats as a way of simulating early life stress (ELS) in humans. The question addressed was whether early stress is necessary and sufficient for the development of stress-related behaviours relevant to depression. Animals underwent behavioural testing, including probabilistic reversal learning (PRL) to assess behavioural flexibility, and sequential fMRI to evaluate resting-state functional connectivity. Computational analyses revealed differences in reward and punishment learning rates in males arising from maternal separation (MS) and adulthood stress. In contrast, MS female rats showed differences in the 'stickiness' parameter, a latent variable aligned with a loss of flexibility and habit-like behaviour. Finally, MS females and MS males have opposite directional changes in connectivity, as females show lower functional connectivity from the amygdala to the anterior cingulate cortex, infralimbic cortex and insular cortex compared to males. The subsequent chapter uses a computational approach to investigate latent vulnerability variables in cocaine addiction. A longitudinal dataset acquired in rats was analysed, which involved behavioural phenotyping for several addiction vulnerability traits, including behavioural inflexibility, together with high-resolution MRI brain scans. It was found that future drug-related compulsivity was predicted by higher values of the stickiness parameter, reflecting an increase in perseverative responding commonly found in stimulant-dependent individuals. Structurally, a positive correlation between the volume of the anterior insular cortex and a parameter relating to how subjects explore versus exploit reward options was found. The remaining results chapters involve the analysis of three datasets collected from human participants. Chapter 5 includes data from a study involving PRL run concurrently with fMRI scanning. The participants in this study included healthy controls (HCs), as well as individuals with cocaine use disorder (CUD) and gambling disorder (GD). Contrary to previously published findings, no significant differences in alpha, beta or kappa were observed between controls and the CUD group. However, in pathological gamblers, a significant increase in side stickiness was found, showing that gamblers tend to repeat responding in the same spatial location regardless of the outcome on previous trials. Neurally, there is an altered balance in the tracking of reward and punishment expected value (EV) in GD, as well as a shifted balance in processing positive and negative punishment prediction errors (PPE) in CUD. Reward EV tracking in GD involved greater activity in the middle temporal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, precuneus cortex and amygdala, whereas during punishment EV tracking there was lower activity in the postcentral gyrus, superior parietal lobule and precuneus cortex compared to HCs. In response to positive PPEs, the frontal pole, superior frontal gyrus and cingulate gyrus showed lower activity in patients with CUD than controls, but the same group showed greater activity following negative PPEs in the superior and middle frontal gyrus. Chapter 6 includes behavioural and clinical data from samples of patients with SUD and/or MDD as well as healthy individuals. The main findings of this chapter were that patients with SUD have reduced reinforcement sensitivity and increased stimulus stickiness, as do patients diagnosed with both disorders. No evidence for an association between computationally derived variables and clinical measures (e.g., the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology – IDS) was found. The final results chapter presents a novel behavioural task that measures a different subtype of proactive cognitive flexibility, specifically, how healthy participants make decisions in the face of uncertainty and whether they shift their response when they are given the opportunity to repeat their choice following presentation of unreliable feedback. Participants changed their response more frequently following negative than positive feedback. Significant fMRI activations in the frontal pole, anterior cingulate cortex, frontal orbital cortex, and superior frontal gyrus were found when the response was changed rather than repeated. Furthermore, stronger connectivity between the anterior insula and parts of the occipital cortex was found during repeat trials. Finally, it was shown using a multivariate pattern fMRI analysis that behavioural responses on the next trial could be successfully predicted. The results in this thesis demonstrate the importance of RL in preclinical and clinical psychiatric cohorts. The parameter kappa is identified as a key behavioural marker across species. This parameter is altered as a result of ELS in rodents and can help predict rats that show high-compulsive behaviours on cocaine self-administration paradigms. In humans, kappa is affected in individuals with GD as well as SUD. Brain regions underlying RL parameters, including kappa, in both rodents and humans are identified, particularly highlighting the involvement of the cingulate gyrus in reinforcement learning across species. The results from the reversal learning task studies are then compared with findings from the behavioural and fMRI analyses of a new flexibility task, which extend our knowledge of cognitive flexibility beyond our current understanding of this construct.
... The dACC has been implicated in integrating and learning the risk of an action to optimize decision-making (Bush et al., 2002;Kennerley et al., 2006;Rushworth et al., 2004). The dACC showed higher activation during decisions to quit vs. to chase losses (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008), suggesting dACC's role in processing negative outcomes for behavioral adjustment. Prior studies also demonstrated co-activation of the rAI and dACC during the anticipation of an electric shock (Chua et al., 1999). ...
Reward and punishment motivate decision making and behavioral changes. Numerous studies have examined regional activities during anticipation and outcome of win and loss in the monetary incentive delay task (MIDT). However, the great majority of studies reported findings of anticipation or outcome and of win or loss alone. It remains unclear how the neural correlates share and differentiate amongst these processes. We conducted an Activation Likelihood Estimation meta-analysis of 81 studies of the MIDT (5,864 subjects), including 24 published since the most recent meta-analysis, to identify and, with conjunction and subtraction, contrast regional responses to win anticipation, loss anticipation, win outcome, and loss outcome. Win and loss anticipation engaged a shared network of bilateral anterior insula (AI), striatum, thalamus, supplementary motor area (SMA), and precentral gyrus. Win and loss outcomes did not share regional activities. Win and loss outcome each engaged higher activity in medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Bilateral striatum and right occipital cortex responded to both anticipation and outcome of win, and right AI to both phases of loss. Win anticipation vs. outcome engaged higher activity in bilateral AI, striatum, SMA and precentral gyrus and right thalamus, and lower activity in bilateral mOFC and posterior cingulate cortex as well as right inferior frontal and angular gyri. Loss anticipation relative to outcome involved higher activity in bilateral striatum and left AI. These findings collectively suggest shared and distinct regional responses during monetary wins and losses. Delineating the neural correlates of these component processes may facilitate empirical research of motivated behavior and dysfunctional approach and avoidance in psychopathology.
... Due to the lack of a neutral baseline, we cannot distinguish between these two effects here. Accordingly, two explanations (not mutually exclusive) may account for the smaller effect for highly involved gamblers: the high-involvement group may be less sensitive to wins, and/or they may be less sensitive to losses (e.g., [49,50]). Future research may utilize simulated gambling tasks that include neutral outcomes (e.g., [25]), and examine how the two effects may be related to gamblers' level of involvement. ...
The tendency to continue or intensify gambling after losing (loss-chasing) is widely regarded as a defining feature of gambling disorder. However, loss-chasing in real gambling contexts is multifaceted, and some aspects are better understood than others. Gamblers may chase losses between multiple sessions or within a single session. Furthermore, within a session, loss-chasing can be expressed in the decision of (1) when to stop, (2) how much stake to bet, and (3) the speed of play after winning and losing. Using a large player-tracking data set (>2500 players, >10 million rounds) collected from the online commercial game Mystery Arena , we examined these three behavioral expressions of within-session loss-chasing. While the first two aspects (when to stop and how much stake to bet) have been examined previously, the current research is the first large-scale study to examine the effects of wins and losses on the speed of play in real gambling. The players were additionally assigned different involvement levels by the operator based on their gambling behavior on the operator’s own platform, which further allowed us to examine group differences in loss-chasing. We found that after winning, both the high- and low-involvement groups were less likely to stop, and increased the stake amount, thus showing win-chasing instead of loss-chasing in these two facets. After losing, both groups played more quickly though, which may reflect an urge to continue gambling (as an expression of loss-chasing). Wins and losses had a smaller influence on the speed of play for the high-involvement players, suggesting that they might have reduced sensitivity to wins and/or losses. Future work can further examine chasing in different gambling products and in people with gambling problems to assess the generalizability of these findings.
... Two participants described that they chased wins, and three participants that they continued to gamble to win back money they lost. The gambling activity itself was also described in relation to emotional events, where placing a bet was associated with excitement, winning with euphoria and a kick, and losing with anxiety and a lust for revenge; findings that are in line with a functional magnetic resonance imaging study by Campbell-Meiklejohn et al. [54]. Chasing, in particular chasing losses, has been proposed as a key symptom of GD [55], although experimental studies investigating this phenomenon seem rare [29]. ...
Background
From a clinical perspective, knowledge of the psychological processes involved in maintaining gambling disorder has been lacking. This qualitative study formulated hypotheses on how gambling disorder is maintained by identifying clinically relevant behaviors at an individual level, as a means to guide the development of new cognitive behavioral interventions.
Methods
Six individuals from a treatment study, diagnosed with gambling disorder and with diverse symptom profiles of psychiatric comorbidity, were recruited. Participants were interviewed using an in-depth semi-structured functional interview and completed self-report measures assessing gambling behavior.
Results
Functional analysis was used as a theoretical framework for a thematic analysis, which yielded the following categories: 1) antecedents that may increase or decrease gambling; 2) experiences accompanying gambling; 3) control strategies; 4) consequences of gambling behavior; and 5) events terminating gambling behavior. Few differences were identified in relation to symptom profiles of psychiatric comorbidity, although some gamblers did not report experiencing abstinence when not being able to gamble.
Conclusions
Gambling is a secluded activity mainly triggered by access to money. Positive and negative emotions could be both antecedents and functions of gambling behavior. Avoidance-based strategies used to control gambling might result in a failure to learn to control gambling behavior. Anticipation, selective attention, and chasing could be important reinforcers, which should be addressed in new developments in cognitive behavioral treatment for gambling disorder.
... This finding has been supported by subsequent studies in verified paradigms [21,22]. Moreover, the dFMC is also involved in the suppression of cigarette cravings [23] and gambling desires [24]. However, intentional inhibition is expressed by stopping or withdrawing an action. ...
Numerous findings from functional neuroimaging research suggest that overweight may be associated with alterations in reactive inhibition. However, there is a dearth of research investigating the functional connectivity that mediates intentional inhibition in overweight individuals. To explore this issue, 55 overweight and 45 normal-weight adults completed an assessment consisting of a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan, a behavioural task measuring food-specific intentional inhibition, and a 1-year longitudinal measurement of BMI change. A seed-based approach was employed to examine the group-difference of the resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the medial frontal cortex (MFC) (dorsal fronto-medial cortex [dFMC], pre-supplementary motor area, and premotor cortex) regions involved in intentional inhibition. Compared with normal-weight adults, the overweight individuals exhibited higher rsFC between the MFC seeds and (i) cerebellum, (ii) postcentral gyrus, (iii) middle temporal gyrus, and (iv) posterior cingulate cortex, while lower rsFC strength were observed between MFC seeds and (i) putamen and (ii) insula. The overweight individuals with higher dFMC–cerebellum rsFC strength showed poorer performance in food-specific intentional inhibition and gained more weight a year later than those of normal-weight participants. Results suggested that altered functional connections between MFC and regions associated with reward and maladaptive eating may be key neural mechanisms of food-specific intentional inhibition in overweight status. Therefore, individuals are encouraged to make informed decisions about their health and reduce their consumption of obesogenic foods from the perspective of intentional inhibition.
... Previous studies have reported irrational behavior during gambling (i.e., chasing losses), whereby people make riskier decisions after a loss than a win, and decide to continue gambling despite considerable losses. [51][52][53] It is possible that these differences may affect the decisions or neural activity of PGs during the next decision phase. ...
Gambling disorder and problem gambling are characterized by persistent and repetitive problematic gambling behavior. Attentional bias toward gambling-related stimuli such as casino chips, dice, roulette, etc. have been observed in problem gamblers, but it remains unclear whether stimuli in gambling tasks elicit greater attention and pupillary responses in problem gamblers. To address this issue, we administrated problem and non-problem gamblers a gambling task accompanied by eye-tracking measurements, in which the participants were required to choose one of the paired pictures to receive monetary rewards and avoid punishments. Concerning attentional allocation, problem gamblers showed a greater attentional preference for the right-hand pictures in the decision and feedback phases, and compared to non-problem gamblers, problem gamblers’ attention was particularly high around the center. Concerning pupillary dynamics, pupillary dilation in response to rewards and punishments was observed only in problem gamblers. Accordingly, asymmetrical allocation of attention by problem gamblers may reflect greater concentration on the gambling task, and pupillary dynamics in problem gamblers may reflect hypersensitivity to wins and losses.
... Two participants described that they chased wins, and three participants that they continued to gamble to win back money they lost. The gambling activity itself was also described in relation to emotional events, where placing a bet was associated with excitement, winning with euphoria and a kick, and losing with anxiety and a lust for revenge; ndings that are in line with a functional magnetic resonance imaging study by Campbell-Meiklejohn et al. (54). Chasing, in particular chasing losses, has been proposed as a key symptom of GD (55), although experimental studies investigating this phenomenon seem rare (29). ...
Background
From a clinical perspective, knowledge of the psychological processes involved in maintaining gambling disorder has been lacking. This qualitative study formulated hypotheses on how gambling disorder is maintained by identifying clinically relevant behaviors at an individual level, as a means to guide the development of new cognitive behavioral interventions.
Methods
Six individuals from a treatment study, diagnosed with gambling disorder and with diverse symptom profiles of psychiatric comorbidity, were recruited. Participants were interviewed using an in-depth semi-structured functional interview and completed self-report measures assessing gambling behavior.
Results
Functional analysis was used as a theoretical framework for a thematic analysis, which yielded the following categories: 1) antecedents that may increase or decrease gambling; 2) experiences accompanying gambling; 3) control strategies; 4) consequences of gambling behavior; and 5) events terminating gambling behavior. Few differences were identified in relation to symptom profiles of psychiatric comorbidity, although some gamblers did not report experiencing abstinence when not being able to gamble.
Conclusions
Gambling is a secluded activity mainly triggered by access to money. Positive and negative emotions could be both antecedents and functions of gambling behavior. Avoidance-based strategies used to control gambling might result in a failure to learn to control gambling behavior. Anticipation, selective attention, and chasing could be important reinforcers, which should be addressed in new developments in cognitive behavioral treatment for gambling disorder.
... Previous studies (i.e., Challet-Bouju et al., 2020;Perrot et al., 2018) have operationalized chasing losses using the metric of frequent depositing (which was also used in the present study). Chasing losses has been described as an important risk factor for problem gambling in several studies (e.g., Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008;Lesieur, 1979). The present study analyzed the influence of the amount lost before a mandatory play break on the propensity to deposit and wager afterwards. ...
In recent years, various novel responsible gambling (RG) tools have been implemented to aid harm-minimization. One such RG tool has been the implementation of enforced mandatory play breaks. Despite many responsible gambling operators using mandatory play breaks, only three previous studies have examined their efficacy and the findings were mixed. Therefore, the present investigation was a large-scale real-world study which was designed to see whether a 60-minute mandatory play break influenced subsequent depositing and wagering. The authors were given access to 27 days of player data prior to the introduction of a mandatory play break and 27 days of player data after the mandatory play break was introduced. The study comprised British online gamblers from Skillonnet (a European online gambling operator). Between July 23 and September 15 (2021), 2,021 players deposited at least ten times or more on a calendar day, at least once. The 2,201 players generated 2,994 corresponding events (i.e., the depositing of money at least 10 times in one day). The percentage of players who stopped depositing money as a consequence of the mandatory play break rose from 27% to 68% on the day of a play break. Moreover, the percentage of players who stopped wagering as a consequence of the mandatory play break rose from 0.1% to 45% on the day of a play break. The findings of the present study demonstrated that a 60-minute mandatory play break impacts players' depositing and wagering immediately after the play break. This means that a mandatory hour-long play break in an online casino setting appears to prevent overspending during a short period of time. The effects of a 60-minute mandatory break on the next day's behavior were inconclusive.
... Finally, the whether component controls the conscious inhibition of action generation. Here, Brass and Haggard (2007) found evidence of a distinct area in the dorsal fronto-median cortex (dFMC), located in proximity to the RCZ and preSMA, that activates in conjunction with the inhibition of actions, or self-control in gambling situations (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008). They identified further inhibitory activity in the insula, as well as the frontal cortex in general (Walsh et al., 2010). ...
The main goal of neuroscience is to bridge the gap from “membrane” to “mind” via empirical research that elucidates the functional processes from neuron to brain, or theoretical models that frame the cognitive flow from thought to action. Yet, in spite of great, technology-enabled advances in our knowledge of basic neural mechanisms, we still struggle to understand how abstract higher-order cognitive functions such as intention formation finally give rise to goal-directed behavior. Likewise, how external stimuli may precipitate subconscious, yet purposeful action remains unclear. The reasons for these difficulties are both methodological and conceptual in nature and might, in both cases, stem from neglect to account for the multiscale organizational elements in the human brain: for instance, connectivity analyses based on functional MRI (fMRI) routinely pre-process data with an arbitrarily selected single spatial filter, thereby obscuring cortical activity at other observation scales; similarly, signal sampling for BCI applications is usually limited to single lower-order processing areas, although neuronal correlates of intention are more likely to be distributed across higher-order association regions.
This doctoral thesis investigates the spatial multiscale dimension of neocortical network activity as observed via fMRI recordings and devises an integrative hierarchical model of intention formation informed by neuroscientific evidence and philosophical concepts established in the field of action theory.
Multiscale, surface-constrained pre-processing of movement-related data reveals spatiotemporal features of the hemodynamic response previously unknown in spite of the ubiquitous use of fMRI as an investigative tool: the biphasic response function underlying the majority of fMRI studies in the past 20 years is called into question, as the post-stimulus response undershoot is shown as a surround effect absent from higher-order processing areas; these multiscale data sets also lend themselves to the analysis of cortical networks and the scale-dependent variability of interregional network connections, indicating a possible relation to different levels of the processing hierarchy. Finally, the current neuroscientific and philosophical theories on intention formation are contrasted with each other, and suggested to reflect two opposed, yet complementing streams of top-down and bottom-up influences that scale across time and brain regions as they become integrated in a dynamic process before resulting in intentional, goal-directed action.
... Moreover, the differences in processing losses in GD would be explained by decreased activation of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (BA 34) involved in chasing losses. This would lead patients with GD to an impaired cognitive control when gambling, and to a deficit in stopping chasing losses at the next gambling opportunity (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008). Additionally, studies included in our systematic review investigating cue reactivity in GD mainly reported a functional hyperactivation in the areas related to visual processing (medial occipital gyrus) and motivation (anterior cingulate cortex). ...
Previous imaging studies suggested that impairments of prefrontal-striatal and limbic circuits are correlated to excessive gambling. However, the neural underpinnings of gambling disorder (GD) continue to be the topic of debate. The present study aimed to identify structural changes in GD and differentiate the specific brain activity patterns associated with decision-making and reward-processing. We performed a systematic review complemented by Activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses on morphometric and functional studies on neural correlates of GD. The ALE meta-analysis on structural studies revealed that patients with GD showed significant cortical grey-matter thinning in the right ventrolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex compared to healthy subjects. The ALE meta-analyses on functional studies revealed that patients with GD showed a significant hyperactivation in the medial prefrontal cortex and in the right ventral striatum during decision-making and gain processing compared to healthy subjects. These findings suggest that GD is related to an alteration of brain mechanisms underlying top-down control and appraisal of gambling-related stimuli and provided indications to develop new interventions in clinical practice.
... In turn, the previous defeat has a positive and significant impact on subjects voting for conflict in the "50:50" treatment. This indicates loss-chasing, when individuals continue gambling to recover a loss even at the risk of doubling its size ( Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008 ). ...
Understanding how resource scarcity affects violent conflict over resources has been one of the central topics in economics and other social sciences for decades. Yet, we know surprisingly little about how resource scarcity affects individual behaviour that can spur inter-group conflict. To address this gap, we propose the common-pool experiment with renewable resources to study how incentives to engage in conflict change with resource depletion. Moreover, we examine how the possibility of conflict affects extraction. Each round, after harvesting, the players vote on whether to engage in conflict with the opponent group, in which they can annex a part of the opponent group's resource. The probability of winning varies between treatments. In the "50:50" treatment, to which we refer to as a baseline, the probability of winning is exogenous and equal for each party. In the "conflict-by-greed" treatment, the probability is proportional to the difference in resources between groups. Finally, in the "resource wars" treatment, the likelihood of winning depends on the number of tokens invested by each group in conflict. Experimental results show that "conflict-by-greed" promotes resource conservation. Subjects extract less resources compared to the baseline so as to increase chances of winning in war, which supports the parochial altruism hypothesis. Here, resource depletion is conducive to conflict , which distinguishes "conflict-by-greed" from other treatments. In addition, we find that "resource wars" are extremely destructive. Not only is conflict expenditure above the equilibrium, but also investing in conflict makes group members increase their extraction. As a result, the probability of resource exhaustion in the "resource wars" treatment is twice as high as in the baseline. We discuss how differences in uncertainty and the incentive structure between treatments explain these findings.
... A series of imaging and psychopharmacological studies by Rogers and colleagues used a doubleor-quits ('Martingale') task to operationalize chasing decisions more directly. Participants receive an initial loss, and then make a series of choices to either accept that loss or take a gamble to recover the loss, with a risk of doubling its value (55,56). In a proof of principle study in healthy participants, quitting decisions resulted in large cortical activation including anterior insula, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and parietal cortex (55), while chase decisions yielded a more focal response in ventromedial prefrontal cortex and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, which typically represent subjective reward value. ...
Loss-chasing describes the tendency of a gambler to amplify their betting in an effort to recoup prior losses. It is widely regarded as a defining feature of disordered gambling, and a hallmark of the transition from recreational to disordered gambling. We consider the empirical evidence for this central role of loss-chasing in disordered gambling. We highlight multiple behavioural expressions of chasing, including between-session and within-session chasing. From a neurocognitive perspective, loss-chasing could arise from compromised executive functions including inhibitory control, mood-related impulsivity (urgency) and compulsivity, for which there is compelling evidence in disordered gambling. This view is contrasted with a behavioural economic perspective that emphasizes the subjective valuation of outcomes to the gambler, and may better account for nuances in gamblers’ complex response to loss, such as the significance of ‘breaking even’. Neuroimaging and psychopharmacological research on loss-chasing may help to arbitrate between these two perspectives.
... In our own work, we did not observe any systematic change in confidence on feedback streaks, but when the response was switched to a monetary bet, participants responded to losing streaks by increasing their bet size (Studer et al. 2015). This was interpreted as loss chasing, an attempt to recoup accumulating debts by increasing one's bet, which is itself a clinical hallmark of disordered gambling (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al. 2008;Temcheff et al. 2016). A study by Ball (2012) described subsets of participants who increased their bet size on losing streaks (either linearly or curvi-linearly), while others responded with increased wagering to winning streaks. ...
Rationale
Gambling and alcohol use are recreational behaviours that share substantial commonalities at a phenomenological, clinical and neurobiological level. Past studies have shown that alcohol can have a disinhibiting effect on gambling behaviour, in terms of bet size and persistence.
Objectives
This study was conducted in order to characterise how alcohol affects biases in judgment and decision-making that occur during gambling, with a focus on sequential decision-making including the gambler’s fallacy.
Methods
Sequential biases were elicited via a roulette-based gambling task. Using a standard between-groups alcohol challenge procedure, male participants played the roulette task 20 min after receiving an alcoholic (0.8 g/kg; n = 22) or placebo (n = 16) beverage. The task measured colour choice decisions (red/black) and bet size, in response to varying lengths of colour runs and winning/losing feedback streaks.
Results
Across both groups, a number of established sequential biases were observed. On colour choice, there was an effect of run length in line with the gambler’s fallacy, which further varied by previous feedback (wins vs losses). Bet size increased with feedback streaks, especially for losing streaks. Compared to placebo, the alcohol group placed higher bets following losses compared to wins.
Conclusions
Increased bet size after losses following alcohol consumption may reflect increased loss chasing that may amplify gambling harms. Our results do not fit a simple pattern of enhanced gambling distortions or reward sensitivity, but help contextualise the effects of alcohol on gambling to research on decision-making biases.
... One approach to reducing problem gambling may be to attempt to emphasize losses. This may be difficult to accomplish, however, especially given the human tendency to chase losses (Campbell-Meiklejohn, Woolrich, Passingham, & Rogers, 2008), the tendency to risk more on trying to recoup losses than to obtain gains (prospect theory; Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). ...
... Enhancing the subjective probability of recouping one's losses by perceiving such an outcome as controllable (and/or perceiving further losses as avoidable) would undermine the negative somatic states which would otherwise arise following a losing outcome. Consistent with this suggestion, decisions to quit are associated with increased AI and IPS activity compared with decisions to chase losses (Campbell-Meiklejohn, Woolrich, Passingham, & Rogers, 2008). Manipulation of reward probabilities, which in an evolutionary environment may be effective in invigorating risk-taking behaviour which could have advantageous consequences, may, in a modern gambling situation, lead to a destructive cycle of mounting losses. ...
In this paper I postulate that the processing of concepts which are deemed controllable is rooted in neurological machinery located in the posterior parietal cortex specialised for the processing of objects which are immediately actionable because they are within reach. This is demonstrated with reference to the near‐miss effect in gambling behaviour, where it is argued that the configurative proximity of the near‐miss outcome to the win outcome creates the impression that the win outcome is ‘almost within reach' or controllable. The perceived realisability of the desired outcome increases subjective reward probability and the associated expected action value, which impacts decision‐making and behaviour. When extended to substance addiction, this novel hypothesis adds fresh insight into understanding the motivational effects associated with cue‐exposure and opportunity for drug‐taking. Moreover, by postulating that a perception of control can be generated to minimise unpleasant affective states, it can also reconcile contrasting models of decision‐making and provide a neurological explanation for the efficacy of mindfulness‐based techniques in treating addictions. With reference to the previously‐hypothesised link between the self and control, these ideas can provide an explanation for the increased subjective value of self‐associated concepts in the ‘endowment effect', as well as a neurological correlate for the concept of the ‘narrative self'. This paper therefore provides an innovative and unifying perspective for the study and treatment of behavioural and substance addictions as well as contributing to our neurological understanding of philosophical approaches to the self. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... Tanaka et al. [69] also reported an increasing deactivation in VMPFC in proportion to the amount of goal-based processing during an instrumental reinforcement learning task. fMRI studies of self-control in dieting [70] or addiction [71] have also reported deactivations in this region when implementing a top-down strategy to inhibit prepotent responses. Furthermore, functional connectivity between VMPFC and DLPFC has been reported in other studies [72][73][74]. ...
Reinforcement learning studies in rodents and primates demonstrate that goal-directed and habitual choice behaviors are mediated through different fronto-striatal systems, but the evidence is less clear in humans. In this study, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected whilst participants (n = 20) performed a conditional associative learning task in which blocks of novel conditional stimuli (CS) required a deliberate choice, and blocks of familiar CS required an intuitive choice. Using standard subtraction analysis for fMRI event-related designs, activation shifted from the dorso-fronto-parietal network, which involves dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) for deliberate choice of novel CS, to ventro-medial frontal (VMPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex for intuitive choice of familiar CS. Supporting this finding, psycho-physiological interaction (PPI) analysis, using the peak active areas within the PFC for novel and familiar CS as seed regions, showed functional coupling between caudate and DLPFC when processing novel CS and VMPFC when processing familiar CS. These findings demonstrate separable systems for deliberate and intuitive processing, which is in keeping with rodent and primate reinforcement learning studies, although in humans they operate in a dynamic, possibly synergistic, manner particularly at the level of the striatum.
... Despite its importance in the development of problem gambling, the role of chasing has been largely neglected empirically, apart from a few studies that have observed the existence of a relationship between chasing and irrational beliefs (Campbell-Meiklejohn, Woolrich, Passingham, & Rogers, 2008;Griffiths & Whitty, 2010), impulsivity (e.g., Breen & Zuckerman, 1999), lack of emotional competence (Bibby, 2016), dysfunctional personality traits (Kim & Lee, 2011;Nigro, Ciccarelli, & Cosenza, 2018a), dissociation (Yakovenko, 2017), the motivation to win money (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2012;Gainsbury, Suhonen, & Saastamoinen, 2014;Lister, Nower, & Wohl, 2016), decision-making impairments (Nigro, Ciccarelli, & Cosenza, 2018b), and increasing stake size (Parke, Harris, Parke, & Goddard, 2016). ...
Background and aims:
Chasing refers to continued gambling in an attempt to recoup previous losses and is one of the diagnostic criteria for gambling disorder. However, research on the topic is still in its infancy. This study investigated whether chasing behavior mediates the relationship between time perspective and gambling severity.
Methods:
Non-problem gamblers (N = 26) and problem gamblers (N = 66) with the same demographic features (age and gender) were compared on the Consideration of Future Consequences and a computerized task assessing chasing. The Italian South Oaks Gambling Screen was used to discriminate participants in terms of gambling severity.
Results:
Significant correlations were found relating to gambling severity, chasing, and time perspective. More specifically, the results showed that problem gamblers reported more chasing and a foreshortened time horizon. Chasers, compared to non-chasers, were found to be more oriented to the present. Regression analysis showed that male gender, present-oriented time perspective, and chasing were good predictors of gambling severity. Finally, to clarify if present orientation was on the path from chasing to gambling severity or if chasing was the mediator of the impact of present orientation on gambling severity, a path analysis was performed. The results indicated that present orientation had a direct effect on gambling severity and mediated the relationship between chasing and gambling involvement.
Conclusion:
The findings support the exacerbating role of chasing in gambling disorder and for the first time show the relationship of time perspective, chasing, and gambling severity among adults.
... As a condition, a gambling disorder is associated with destroyed careers, broken marriages, financial ruin (Blaszczynski & Nower, 2002), and increased risk of suicide (Newman & Thompson, 2003) . In comparison to the recreational gambler, the pathological gambler displays a different array of behaviors, such as "loss-chasing" (Campbell-Meiklejohn, Woolrich, Passingham, & Rogers, 2008), repeated unsuccessful efforts to stop gambling and frequent lies (Denis, Fats eas, & Auriacombe, 2012). At the same time, gambling serves as a troublefree exciting recreational activity for millions of people and as an industry, provides employment and tax revenues, generating economic contributions that benefit the community (Mawhinney, 2006). ...
Gambling is a field that harbors both harmless recreational activities and pathological varieties that may be considered an addictive disorder. It is also a field that deserves special interest from a learning theoretical perspective, since pathological gambling represents both a pure behavioral addiction involving no ingestion of substances and behavior that exhibits extreme resistance to extinction. As the field of applied psychology of learning, or behavior analysis, espouses a bottom-up approach, the basis of understanding begins in basic research on behavioral principles. This article provides a narrative review of the field of laboratory experiments conducted to disentangle the learning processes of gambling behavior. The purpose of this review is to give an overview of learning principles in gambling that has been demonstrated under lab conditions and that may be of importance in the development of clinical applications when gambling has become a problem. Several processes, like the importance of delay and probability discounting, reinforcement without actual winning, and rule governed behavior have been experimentally verified. The common denominator appears to be that they impede extinction. Other areas, especially Pavlovian conditioning, are scarce in the literature. Our recommendations for the future would be to study Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning in interaction. Treatment programs should profit from strategies that serve to enhance extinction learning. We also conclude that online gambling should provide a promising environment for controlled research on how to limit excessive gambling, provided that the gambling companies are interested in that.
... Nadir kumar oynayanlarda bilişsel çarpıtmalar nadiren bulunurken, bazı araştırmalar bu çarpıklıkların PKO'lı bireylerde şiddetlendiğini ve sık rastlandığını göstermiştir (89,90). Sağlıklı kontrollerde, ventromedial Prefrontal Korteks (vmPFC) ve dorsal anterior singulat kortekste (DACC) aktivite "kayıpları kovalamayı" seçmekle ilişkili bulunmuştur (91). Farklı bir çalışmada, sık kumar oynayan ve PKO bireyler sağlıklı kontroller ile karşılaştırılmış ve kayıp-takip koşullarında karar vermenin düzenlenmesi ile ilgili olan frontal kortikal bölgelerde ve DACC aktivitenin azaldığı saptanmıştır (89). ...
Psychopathologically, the concept of addiction in the terminology of psychiatry has gained a different perspective as a result of behavioral research under the influence of behavioral approaches. Neuroimaging, processing of neurobiological data has contributed to this change in the last 10 years, as the data on comorbidity, inheritance, tolerance, withdrawal symptoms and treatment outcomes among addictions show similarities. Gambling addiction was also affected by this change and new perspectives
on the etiology, diagnostic criteria and treatment were developed. With the recently published Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), gambling addiction was included in the category of addictions and under the heading "Non-substance related disorder" in the category "Drug-Related and Addictive Disorders". This new point of view is likely to be gambling addiction, perhaps leading to the fact that behavioral addictions such as internet use, playing video games, eating and shopping can be evaluated within the context of addiction, and will develop a new perspective on behavioral addictions. The aim of this article is to review gambling disorder within the axis of DSM-5 and assess it from the viewpoint of diagnosis, epidemiology, etiology, comorbidity and treatment.
... In the long run, this illusion could contribute to 'loss chasing' in pathological gambling, where individuals continue gambling to recover previous losses (Clark et al., 2013). Cognitive distortions typical in gambling have been associated with recruitment of the reward circuitry (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008;Clark et al., 2009;Xue et al., 2011). It has been found that individuals with pathological gambling tend to show increased illusion of control in associative learning task where the probability of a desired outcome is pseudorandomly determined independent from the actions taken (Orgaz et al., 2013). ...
Perceived control can be broadly defined as the belief in one’s ability to exert control over situations or events. It has long been known that perceived control is a major contributor toward mental and physical health as well as a strong predictor of achievements in life. However, one issue that limits a mechanistic understanding of perceived control is the heterogeneity of how the term is defined in models in psychology and neuroscience, and used in experimental settings across a wide spectrum of studies. Here, we propose a framework for studying perceived control by integrating the ideas from traditionally separate work on perceived control. Specifically, we discuss key properties of perceived control from a reward-based framework, including choice opportunity, instrumental contingency, and success/reward rate. We argue that these separate reward-related processes are integral to fostering an enhanced perception of control and influencing an individual’s behavior and well-being. We draw on select studies to elucidate how these reward-related elements are implicated separately and collectively in the investigation of perceived control. We highlight the role of dopamine within corticostriatal pathways shared by reward-related processes and perceived control. Finally, through the lens of this reward-based framework of perceived control, we consider the implications of perceived control in clinical deficits and how these insights could help us better understand psychopathology and treatment options.
... It has been called the "island of addiction" (Naqvi & Bechara, 2009) due to its fundamental role in connecting stimuli and environmental cues with urges and in activating drug-seeking goals (Droutman, Read, & Bechara, 2015b). The IC may also play an important role in the decision to quit gambling (Campbell-Meiklejohn, Woolrich, Passingham, & Rogers, 2008). Although evidence suggests that the IC is sensitive to erotic stimuli (Gizewski et al., 2006;Safron et al., 2007), its role in sexually motivated response inhibition has not yet been examined. ...
The insula plays an important role in response inhibition. Most relevant here, it has been proposed that the dorsal anterior insular cortex (dAIC) plays a central role in a salience network that is responsible for switching between the default mode network and the executive control network. However, the insula's role in sexually motivated response inhibition has not yet been studied. In this study, eighty-five 18- to 30-year-old sexually active men who have sex with men (MSM) performed an erotic Go/NoGo task while in an MRI scanner. Participants' real-world sexual risk-taking (frequency of condomless anal intercourse over the past 90 days) was then correlated with their neural activity during the task. We found greater activity in bilateral anterior insular cortex (both dorsal and ventral) on contrasts with stronger motivational information (attractive naked male pictures versus pictures of clothed, middle-aged females) and on contrasts requiring greater response inhibition (NoGo versus Go). We also found that activity in the right dAIC was negatively correlated with participants' real-world sexual risk-taking. Our results confirmed the involvement of the insular cortex in motivated response inhibition. Especially, the decreased right dAIC activity may reduce the likelihood that the executive control network will come online when individuals are faced with situations requiring inhibitory control and thus lead them to make more risky choices.
... In addition, adolescents with internet gambling addiction show high fMRI cuneus activity during go/no-go tasks 19 . Furthermore, fMRI activity in the cuneus appears to be higher when subjects chase losses when gambling but is lower when they quit gambling 20 . ...
During financial decision-making tasks, humans often make “rational” decisions, where they maximize expected reward. However, this rationality may compete with a bias that reflects past outcomes. That is, if one just lost money or won money, this may impact future decisions. It is unclear how past outcomes influence future decisions in humans, and how neural circuits encode present and past information. In this study, six human subjects performed a financial decision-making task while we recorded local field potentials from multiple brain structures. We constructed a model for each subject characterizing bets on each trial as a function of present and past information. The models suggest that some patients are more influenced by previous trial outcomes (i.e., previous return and risk) than others who stick to more fixed decision strategies. In addition, past return and present risk modulated with the activity in the cuneus; while present return and past risk modulated with the activity in the superior temporal gyrus and the angular gyrus, respectively. Our findings suggest that these structures play a role in decision-making beyond their classical functions by incorporating predictions and risks in humans’ decision strategy, and provide new insight into how humans link their internal biases to decisions.
... functions, including attention, decision-making, error monitoring, and impulse control (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2008;Kennerley et al., 2006;Weissman et al., 2005;Bush et al., 2000). Moreover, decreased gray matter volume in inferior frontal gyrus is associated with stop-signal task performance in alcohol-dependent patients (Wiers et al., 2015). ...
Although gray matter (GM) damages caused by long term and excessive alcohol consumption have long been reported, the structural neuroimaging findings on alcohol-use disorders (AUD) are inconsistent. The aim of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis, using a novel voxel-based meta-analytic method effect-size signed differential mapping (ES-SDM), to characterize GM changes in AUD patients. Twelve studies including 433 AUD patients and 498 healthy controls (HCs) were retrieved. The AUD group demonstrated significant GM reductions in the corticostriatal-limbic circuits, including bilateral insula, superior temporal gyrus, striatum, dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), precentral gyrus, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), left thalamus and right hippocampus compared to HCs. GM reduction in the right striatum is significantly negatively related to duration of alcohol dependence, while GM shrinkage of the left superior, middle frontal gyrus, and left thalamus is related to lifetime alcohol consumption. The findings demonstrate that the GM abnormalities caused by AUD are in corticostriatal-limbic circuits whose dysfunctions may involve in craving and observed functional deficits.
BANERJEE, Nilosmita., CHEN, Zhang., CLARK Luke., NOËL Xavier. Behavioural expressions of loss-chasing in gambling: A systematic scoping review NEUROSCI BIOBEHAV REV 152(1) XXX-XXX, 2023. - Loss-chasing, the tendency to continue and/or intensify gambling following losses, is a key clinical symptom in gambling disorder and a central feature endorsed by at-risk problem gamblers. Despite its centrality, loss-chasing has been often operationalised across distinct behavioural expressions. The current systematic scoping review aimed to map the heterogeneous operationalisations of loss-chasing in the literature. The reviewed studies defined loss-chasing either between-sessions (n=39) or within-sessions (n=38), as a long-recognised distinction. For both categories, further behavioural expressions could be distinguished. Between-session loss-chasing was captured by endorsing an item 'returning another day/time to recoup losses', or behaviourally as the interval between successive sessions, or as increasing stakes in the next session. Within-session loss-chasing was defined as continuing and/or intensifying gambling either by increased risk-taking, stake size, or speed of play. Additionally, much heterogeneity was observed in gambling contexts examined, the exact definition of loss, and the potential delineation of win-chasing. Open questions and future directions are discussed. Overall, this paper severs as a first step towards more conceptual clarity of loss-chasing.
Loss-chasing, the tendency to continue and/or intensify gambling following losses, is a key clinical symptom in gambling disorder and a central feature in problem gambling, endorsed by at-risk problem gamblers. Despite its centrality, the extant literature has often operationalised loss-chasing across distinct behavioural expressions. The current systematic scoping review aimed to map the heterogeneous operationalisations of loss-chasing in the literature. The reviewed studies defined loss-chasing either between-sessions (n=39) or within-sessions (n=38), as a long-recognised distinction. For both categories, further behavioural expressions could be distinguished. Between-session loss-chasing was captured by endorsing an item ‘returning another day/time to recoup losses’, or behaviourally as the interval between successive sessions, or as increasing stakes on the next visit. Within-session loss-chasing was defined as continuing to gamble, and/or intensifying betting either by increased risk-taking, stake size, or speed of play. Additionally, much heterogeneity was observed in gambling contexts examined, the exact definition of loss, and the potential delineation of win-chasing. Open questions and future directions are discussed. Overall, this paper severs as a first step towards more conceptual clarity of loss-chasing.
In recent years, strategy researchers have sought to combine behavioural theories with traditional economic views of the firm. As the behavioural trend continues, insights from behavioural neuroscience will play an increasing role in strategic management. Powell (2011) coined the term ‘neurostrategy’ to describe research at the intersection of strategic management and behavioural neuroscience. He argued that properly designed research projects in neurostrategy can help researchers to validate strategy constructs, measure variables, test theories and generate new research ideas. He also noted that neurostrategy brings new challenges – for example, interdisciplinary collaborations can be time-consuming and costly, and brain processes are not always the appropriate unit of analysis in strategic management. On balance, neurostrategy can contribute to strategic management if strategy researchers work closely with neuroscientists on targeted research problems for which brain imaging, neuropharmacology and other neuroscientific methods can provide behavioural insights.
To obtain more of a particular uncertain reward, animals must learn to actively overcome the lack of reward and adjust behaviour to obtain it again. The neural mechanisms underlying such coping with reward omission remain unclear. Here we developed a task in rats to monitor active behavioural switch toward the next reward after no-reward. We discovered that some dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area exhibited increased responses to unexpected reward omission and decreased responses to unexpected reward, following the opposite responses of the well-known dopamine neurons that signal reward prediction error (RPE). The dopamine increase reflected in the nucleus accumbens correlated with behavioural adjustment to actively overcome unexpected no-reward. We propose that these responses signal error to actively cope with lack of expected reward. The dopamine error signal thus cooperates with the RPE signal, enabling adaptive and robust pursuit of uncertain reward to ultimately obtain more reward.
Decision-making under risk is crucial for everyday life. Nevertheless, despite a large effort to identify the nature of decision-making under risk, the neural mechanisms underlying the selection of safe or risky choices remain unclear. To address this issue, the author conducted activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses of 59 functional magnetic resonance imaging studies (1,916 participants; age range, 11.2-70 years; 791 activation foci; 106 experimental contrasts). Results showed that common brain regions, including the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), insula, and middle portion of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (mid-dACC), subserved both safe and risky choices. While safe choices engaged the left mid-dACC more, risky choices engaged the left insula more along with the additional recruitment of the dorsal striatum (putamen, pallidum, caudate), representing distinctions between safe and risky choices. For age effects, adolescents compared with adults were associated more with the right LPFC when selecting safe choices and associated more with the left insula and bilateral dorsal striatum (putamen, pallidum, caudate) when selecting risky choices. Adults compared with adolescents were associated more with the right mid-dACC when selecting risky choices. These findings can be interpreted by drawing on the major developmental theories of decision-making under risk, such as dual-systems model (cognitive control and emotional arousal) and a different theory emphasizing changes in cognitive strategies with development. Although brain activations across tasks in decision processes were identified, along with developmental differences, future ALE analyses should distinguish task factors more cleanly to make firmer conclusions, including distinguishing gain versus loss and risk versus reward.
This study consists of two separate studies. In the first study, the Turkish adaptation of the Beliefs About Emotions Questionnaire (BAEQ; Manser et al., 2012) was carried out. A total of 436 Turkish university students between the ages of 18-29 (M = 23.5, SD = 3.19) participated in the study. The findings showed that the data set confirmed the factor structure suggested for BAEQ with some modifications, and that the 37-item scale is a valid and reliable measurement tool that can be used by emotion regulation researchers and mental health professionals in Turkey. In the second study, a structural equation model was tested in order to better understand the relationships between trait/dispositional mindfulness, beliefs about emotions, adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, and negative and positive mental health. A total of 608 Turkish university students between the ages of 18-29 (M = 23.14, SD = 2.89) participated in the study. The findings revealed that the indirect effect of trait/dispositional mindfulness on adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies as well as on positive and negative mental health through beliefs about emotions and the indirect effect of beliefs about emotions on negative and positive mental health through maladaptive and adaptive emotion regulation strategies were statistically significant. The present findings are discussed in accordance with the relevant literature.
Gambling disorder and problem gambling are characterized by persistent and repetitive problematic gambling behavior. Attentional bias toward gambling-related stimuli such as casino chips, dice, roulette, etc. have been observed in problem gamblers (PGs), but it remains unclear whether stimuli in gambling tasks elicit greater attention and pupillary responses in PGs. To address this issue, we administrated PGs and non-problem gamblers (NPGs) a gambling task accompanied by eye-tracking measurements, in which the participants were required to choose one of the paired pictures to receive monetary rewards and avoid punishments. Concerning attentional allocation, PG showed a greater attentional preference for the right-hand pictures in the decision and feedback phases, and compared to NPGs, PGs’ attention was narrower and more focused on the left-hand pictures in the decision phase. Concerning pupillary dynamics indicative of noradrenergic locus coeruleus activity, pupillary dilation in response to rewards and punishments was observed only in PGs. Studies of unilateral spatial neglect have proposed that asymmetric attention is induced by hemispheric imbalance. Accordingly, asymmetrical allocation of attention by PGs may reflect hemispheric imbalance, and pupillary dynamics may reflect sensitivity to wins and losses.
This chapter first reviews cognitive decision making in adolescents and adults with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD) with a focus on executive function in scenarios such as gambling tasks. A second focus is on emotional decision making in adolescents and adults with and without ASD. Alexithymia and interoception have been found to have an important impact on emotional decision making. The third focus is on moral decision making and individual differences in adolescents with ASD and adolescents with alexithymia and psychopathy. Finally, a support program for enhancement of decision making in adolescents and adults with ASD is proposed.
Many individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) or a diagnosis on the autism spectrum will experience anxiety. Research examining anxiety in these populations has provided understanding of how it presents and how it can be measured more accurately in these individuals. Less is known, however, about the impact that anxiety can have on cognitive tasks or issues. Within neurotypical individuals, anxiety has been shown to impact decision making, both by increasing the likelihood of a “jump-to-conclusion” style of reasoning and also by influencing perceptions of relative risk. The impact of anxiety on the decision making of individuals with IDD or those on the autism spectrum is less well understood. In this chapter we describe the limited research in this area. We then use this to hypothesise about the potential impact it may have across the decision-making process. Given the high prevalence of anxiety (and other mental health challenges) in those with IDD and/or autism, there is a clear need for more work in this area. With this additional knowledge we will be better placed to understand whether anxiety has a positive, negative or neutral effect on decision making in these populations. This knowledge can then be used to support decision making and also reduce any possible negative effects of anxiety on this process.
Chasing, or continuing to gamble to recoup previous losses, is a behavioral marker and a diagnostic criterion for gambling disorder. Even though chasing has been recognized to play a central role in gambling disorder, research on chasing is still relatively scarce. This
study first empirically investigated the interplay between cognitive distortions related to gambling, temporal perspective, and chasing behavior in a sample of habitual gamblers. Two hundred and fifty-five adults took part in the study. Participants completed the South
Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS), the Gambling Related Cognitions Scale (GRCS), the 14-item Consideration of Future Consequences scale (CFC-14), and performed a computerized task assessing chasing behavior. Participants were randomly assigned to three
experimental conditions (Control, Loss, and Win). Hierarchical logistic regression analysis showed that the decision to chase depended on scores on the CFC-14 Immediate scale and the GRCS dimensions Gambling Expectancies and Interpretative Bias. Hierarchical linear
regression analysis indicated that, chasing frequency was affected by Loss condition, distortions related to gambling expectancies and predictive control, as well as by myopia for the future. Interestingly, the results of path analysis clearly indicated that some cognitions
related to gambling predict chasing frequency not only directly, but also indirectly via shortened time horizon. Notably, gambling severity did not predict either the decision to chase, or the chasing persistence. These findings provide further evidence that nonchasers
and chasers seem to belong to two quite distinct subtypes of gamblers. Such a difference could be useful for targeting more effective intervention strategies in gambling disorder treatment.
Obiettivo del presente lavoro è fornire un’analisi della letteratura circa la multifattorialità eziologica, la complessità fenomenologica, comportamentale e di comorbilità del disturbo da gioco d’azzardo.
Come verrà evidenziato, questo disturbo è la risultante dell’intreccio di più variabili: genetiche, bio-temperamentali, psicologico-cognitive, socio-ambientali; e come tale osservato da molteplici prospettive, qui di seguito analizzate, con una attenzione particolare verso l’indagine neurobiologica. Tale prospettiva, come vedremo, osserva e analizza le mutazioni a livello neurotrasmettitoriale che si verificano per mezzo della plasticità neuronale e a livello epigenetico, a causa del comporta-mento di gioco reiterato nel tempo.
Human decisions are susceptible to biases, but establishing causal roles of brain areas has proved to be difficult. Here we studied decision biases in 17 people with unilateral medial prefrontal cortex damage and a rare patient with bilateral ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) lesions. Participants learned to choose which of two options was most likely to win, and then bet money on the outcome. Thus, good performance required not only selecting the best option, but also the amount to bet. Healthy people were biased by their previous bet, as well as by the unchosen option’s value. Unilateral medial prefrontal lesions reduced these biases, leading to more rational decisions. Bilateral vmPFC lesions resulted in more strategic betting, again with less bias from the previous trial, paradoxically improving performance overall. Together, the results suggest that vmPFC normally imposes contextual biases, which in healthy people may actually be suboptimal in some situations.
Psychostimulant drugs, such as cocaine and amphetamines, of the indirect sympathomimetic class have a long history as tonics and other preparations to allay fatigue and sustain performance. These drugs also have a long history of abuse and dependence. Abuse potential varies with the availability of the drug both environmentally and physiologically, with intravenous and smoked forms of both cocaine and amphetamines producing much more severe substance use disorder. Cocaine and amphetamines have a characteristic abuse cycle that involves binge administration, withdrawal dysphoria, paranoia, and psychosis-like symptoms as the cycle continues or intensifies. Significant advances have been made in our understanding of the mechanisms of action of psychomotor stimulant drugs at the behavioral, neuropharmacological, cellular, and molecular levels that can be heuristically framed in the three-stage cycle of addiction:  binge/intoxication, withdrawal/negative affect, and  preoccupation/anticipation. Eventually, three corresponding domains and neurocircuits coalesced around these three stages: binge/intoxication (incentive salience/pathological habits domain, basal ganglia neurocircuits), withdrawal/negative affect (negative affect domain, extended amygdala), and preoccupation/anticipation (executive function, prefrontal cortex). Thus, the new revised book, Neurobiology of Addiction, is now organized along the three stage/three domain construct while retaining synthesis at the circuit, cellular, and molecular levels of analysis.
Addictions involve a spectrum of behaviors that encompass features of impulsivity and compulsivity, herein referred to as impulsive-compulsive spectrum disorders (ICSDs). The etiology of ICSDs likely involves a complex interplay among neurobiological, psychological and social risk factors. Neurobiological risk factors include the status of the neuroanatomical circuits that govern ICSDs. These circuits can be altered by disease, as well as exogenous influences such as centrally-acting pharmacologics. The ‘poster child’ for this scenario is Parkinson’s disease (PD) medically managed by pharmacological treatments. PD is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that involves a gradual loss of dopaminergic neurons largely within nigrostriatal projections. Replacement therapy includes dopamine receptor agonists that directly activate postsynaptic dopamine receptors (bypassing the requirement for functioning presynaptic terminals). Some clinically useful dopamine agonists, e.g., pramipexole and ropinirole, exhibit high affinity for the D2/D3 receptor subtypes. These agonists provide excellent relief from PD motor symptoms, but some patients exhibit debilitating ICSD. Teasing out the neuropsychiatric contribution of PD-associated pathology from the drugs used to treat PD motor symptoms is challenging. In this review, we posit that modern clinical and preclinical research converge on the conclusion that dopamine replacement therapy can mediate addictions in PD and other neurological disorders. We provide five categories of evidences that align with this position: (i) ICSD prevalence is greater with D2/D3 receptor agonist therapy vs PD alone. (ii) Capacity of dopamine replacement therapy to produce addiction-like behaviors is independent of disease for which the therapy is being provided. (iii) ICSD-like behaviors are recapitulated in laboratory rats with and without PD-like pathology. (iv) Behavioral pathology co-varies with drug exposure. (v) ICSD Features of ICSDs are consistent with agonist pharmacology and neuroanatomical substrates of addictions. Considering the underpinnings of ICSDs in PD should not only help therapeutic decision-making in neurological disorders, but also apprise ICSDs in general.
'Chasing' behavior, whereby individuals, driven by a desire to break-even, continue a risky activity (RA) despite incurring large losses, is a commonly observed phenomenon. We examine whether the desire to break-even plays a wider role in decisions to stop engaging in financially motivated RA in a naturalistic setting. We test hypotheses, motivated by this research question, using a large dataset: 707,152 transactions of 5,379 individual financial market spread traders between September 2004 and April 2013. The results indicate strong effects of changes in wealth around the break-even point on the decision to cease a RA. An important mediating factor was the individual's historical long-term performance. Those with a more profitable trading history were less affected by a fall in cash-balance below the break-even point compared to those who had been less profitable. We observe that break-even points play an important role in the decision of non-pathological risk-takers to stop RAs. It is possible, therefore, that these non-pathological cognitive processes, when occurring in extrema, may result in pathological gambling behavior such as ‘chasing’. Our dataset focuses on RAs in financial markets and, consequently, we discuss the implications for institutions and regulators in the effective management of risk taking in markets. We also suggest that there may be a need to consider carefully the nature and role of ‘break-even points’ associated with a broader range of non-financially-focussed risk taking activities, such as smoking and substance abuse.
The sunk cost effect is the tendency to continue an investment, or take an action, even though it has higher future costs than benefits, if costs of time, money, or effort were previously incurred. This type of decision bias is pervasive in real life and has been studied in various disciplines. Previous studies and clinical observations suggest that decision-making under sunk costs is altered in gambling disorder (GD). However, the neural mechanisms of decision-making under sunk costs in GD remain largely unknown, and so is their association with the clinical characteristics of this patient group. Here, by combining functional magnetic resonance imaging and the task that demonstrated a clear example of the sunk cost effect, we investigated the neural correlates during decision-making under sunk costs in GD. We found no significant differences in the strength of the sunk cost effect between the GD and healthy control (HC) groups. However, the strength of the sunk cost effect in patients with GD showed a significant negative correlation with abstinence period and a marginally significant positive correlation with the duration of illness. We also found a reduction in the neural activation in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex during decision-making under sunk costs for the GD group compared with the HC group. Furthermore, in patients with GD, the levels of activation in this area negatively correlated with the duration of illness. These findings have important clinical implications. This study will contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying altered decision-making abilities in GD.
Pathological gambling (PG), characterized by “recurrent maladaptive gambling behavior that disrupts personal, family, or vocational pursuits,” affects about 0.2–2.0% of the adult population. As PG may affect family members, employers, and society as a whole, PG is important to understand within a public health framework. Similarities have been identified between the pathophysiologies of PG and substance use disorders. This has led to a proposal to conceptualize and categorize PG as a nonsubstance or “behavioral” addiction. Both substance and nonsubstance addictions are associated with alterations in brain structure and function, can be treated with behavioral and pharmacological therapies, and, if left untreated, may lead to devastating consequences.
The central role of the hypothalamus in the origination and/or processing of feeding-related stimuli may be modulated by the
activity of other functional areas of the brain including the insular cortex (involved in enteroceptive monitoring) and the
prefrontal cortex (involved in the inhibition of inappropriate response tendencies). Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF),
a marker of neuronal activity, was measured in 11 healthy, normal-weight men by using positron emission tomography in a state
of hunger (after 36-h fast) and a state of satiation (after a liquid meal). Hunger was associated with significantly increased
rCBF in the vicinity of the hypothalamus and insular cortex and in additional paralimbic and limbic areas (orbitofrontal cortex,
anterior cingulate cortex, and parahippocampal and hippocampal formation), thalamus, caudate, precuneus, putamen, and cerebellum.
Satiation was associated with increased rCBF in the vicinity of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex, and inferior parietal lobule. Changes in plasma insulin concentrations in response to the meal were negatively correlated
with changes in rCBF in the insular and orbitofrontal cortex. Changes in plasma free fatty acid concentrations in response
to the meal were negatively correlated with changes in rCBF in the anterior cingulate and positively correlated with changes
in rCBF in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In conclusion, these findings raise the possibility that several regions of
the brain participate in the regulation of hunger and satiation and that insulin and free fatty acids may be metabolic modulators
of postprandial brain neuronal events. Although exploratory, the present study provides a foundation for investigating the
human brain regions and cognitive operations that respond to nutritional stimuli.
Presents an analysis of the psychological and sociological aspects of compulsive gambling. Topics include the relation between occupation and gambling, the bookmaker and his business relations, getting money through the gambling setting, and abstinence and relapse cycles among compulsive gamblers. (5 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Instrumental conditioning studies how animals and humans choose actions appropriate to the affective structure of an environment.
According to recent reinforcement learning models, two distinct components are involved: a “critic,” which learns to predict
future reward, and an “actor,” which maintains information about the rewarding outcomes of actions to enable better ones to
be chosen more frequently. We scanned human participants with functional magnetic resonance imaging while they engaged in
instrumental conditioning. Our results suggest partly dissociable contributions of the ventral and dorsal striatum, with the
former corresponding to the critic and the latter corresponding to the actor.
The material presented in this report is not intended as an explanation of compulsive gambling. I do not pretend to be refuting the psychoanalytic or the personality theorists. Rather, I describe the changes that take place in the career of the person turned compulsive gambler. Some of what is described here adds to the already existing knowledge of the compulsion.
Many studies of brain function with positron emission tomography (PET) involve the interpretation of a subtracted PET image, usually the difference between two images under baseline and stimulation conditions. The purpose of these studies is to see which areas of the brain are activated by the stimulation condition. In many cognitive studies, the activation is so slight that the experiment must be repeated on several subjects and the subtracted images are averaged to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. The averaged image is then standardized to have unit variance and then searched for local maxima. The main problem facing investigators is which of these local maxima are statistically significant. We describe a simple method for determining an approximate p value for the global maximum based on the theory of Gaussian random fields. The p value is proportional to the volume searched divided by the product of the full widths at half-maximum of the image reconstruction process or number of resolution elements. Rather than working with local maxima, our method focuses on the Euler characteristic of the set of voxels with a value larger than a given threshold. The Euler characteristic depends only on the topology of the regions of high activation, irrespective of their shape. For large threshold values this is approximately the same as the number of isolated regions of activation above the threshold. We can thus not only determine if any activation has taken place, but we can also estimate how many isolated regions of activation are present.
The South Oaks Gambling Screen is a 20-item questionnaire based on DSM-III criteria for pathological gambling. It may be self-administered or administered by nonprofessional or professional interviewers. A total of 1,616 subjects were involved in its development: 867 patients with diagnoses of substance abuse and pathological gambling, 213 members of Gamblers Anonymous, 384 university students, and 152 hospital employees. Independent validation by family members and counselors was obtained for the calibration sample, and internal consistency and test-retest reliability were established. The instrument correlates well with the criteria of the revised version of DSM-III (DSM-III-R). It offers a convenient means to screen clinical populations of alcoholics and drug abusers, as well as general populations, for pathological gambling.
We examined the striatal projections from different cytoarchitectonic regions of the insular cortex using anterograde and retrograde techniques. The shell and medial ventral striatum receive inputs primarily from the agranular and ventral dysgranular insula. The central ventral striatum receives inputs primarily from the dorsal agranular and dysgranular insula. Projections to the central ventral striatum originate from more posterior and dorsal insular regions than projections to the medial ventral striatum. The dorsolateral striatum receives projections primarily from the dorsal dysgranular and granular insula.
These results show that cytoarchitectonically less differentiated (agranular) insular regions project to the ventromedial “limbic” part of the ventral striatum, whereas more differentiated (granular) insular regions project to the dorsolateral “sensorimotor” part of the striatum. The finding that the ventral “limbic” striatum receives inputs from less differentiated regions of the insula is consistent with the general principle that less differentiated cortical regions project primarily to the “limbic” striatum. Functionally, the ventral striatum receives insular projections primarily related to integrating feeding behavior with rewards and memory, whereas the dorsolateral striatum receives insular inputs related to the somatosensation. Information regarding food acquisition in the insula may be sent to the intermediate area of the striatum.
Reciprocal connections between the orbitofrontal cortex and the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala may provide a critical circuit for the learning that underlies goal-directed behavior. We examined neural activity in rat orbitofrontal cortex and basolateral amygdala during instrumental learning in an olfactory discrimination task. Neurons in both regions fired selectively during the anticipation of rewarding or aversive outcomes. This selective activity emerged early in training, before the rats had learned reliably to avoid the aversive outcome. The results support the concept that the basolateral amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex cooperate to encode information that may be used to guide goal-directed behavior.
The experience of pain is subjectively different from the fear and anxiety caused by threats of pain. Functional magnetic
resonance imaging in healthy humans was applied to dissociate neural activation patterns associated with acute pain and its
anticipation. Expectation of pain activated sites within the medial frontal lobe, insular cortex, and cerebellum distinct
from, but close to, locations mediating pain experience itself. Anticipation of pain can in its own right cause mood changes
and behavioral adaptations that exacerbate the suffering experienced by chronic pain patients. Selective manipulations of
activity at these sites may offer therapeutic possibilities for treating chronic pain.
Decision theory proposes that humans and animals decide what to do in a given situation by assessing the relative value of each possible response. This assessment can be computed, in part, from the probability that each action will result in a gain and the magnitude of the gain expected. Here we show that the gain (or reward) a monkey can expect to realize from an eye-movement response modulates the activity of neurons in the lateral intraparietal area, an area of primate cortex that is thought to transform visual signals into eye-movement commands. We also show that the activity of these neurons is sensitive to the probability that a particular response will result in a gain. When animals can choose freely between two alternative responses, the choices subjects make and neuronal activation in this area are both correlated with the relative amount of gain that the animal can expect from each response. Our data indicate that a decision-theoretic model may provide a powerful new framework for studying the neural processes that intervene between sensation and action.
This paper reviews architectonic subdivisions and connections of the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex (OMPFC) in rats, monkeys and humans. Cortico-cortical connections provide the basis for recognition of 'medial' and 'orbital' networks within the OMPFC. These networks also have distinct connections with structures in other parts of the brain. The orbital network receives sensory inputs from several modalities, including olfaction, taste, visceral afferents, somatic sensation and vision, which appear to be especially related to food or eating. In contrast, the medial network provides the major cortical output to visceromotor structures in the hypothalamus and brainstem. The two networks have distinct connections with areas of the striatum and mediodorsal thalamus. In particular, projections to the nucleus accumbens and the adjacent ventromedial caudate and putamen arise predominantly from the medial network. Both networks also have extensive connections with limbic structures. Based on these and other observations, the OMPFC appears to function as a sensory-visceromotor link, especially for eating. This linkage appears to be critical for the guidance of reward-related behavior and for setting of mood. Imaging and histological observations on human brains indicate that clinical depressive disorders are associated with specific functional and cellular changes in the OMPFC, including activity and volume changes, and specific changes in the number of glial cells.
Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) is a brain region that subserves cognition and motor control, but the mechanisms of these functions remain unknown. Human neuroimaging and monkey electrophysiology studies have provided valuable insights, but it has been difficult to link the two literatures. Based on monkey single-unit recordings, we hypothesized that human dACC is comprised of a mixture of functionally distinct cells that variously anticipate and detect targets, indicate novelty, influence motor responses, encode reward values, and signal errors. As an initial test of this conceptualization, the current event-related functional MRI study used a reward-based decision-making task to isolate responses from a subpopulation of dACC cells sensitive to reward reduction. As predicted, seven of eight subjects showed significant (P < 10(-4)) dACC activation when contrasting reduced reward (REDrew) trials to fixation (FIX). Confirmatory group analyses then corroborated the predicted ordinal relationships of functional MRI activation expected during each trial type (REDrew > SWITCH > CONrew > or = FIX). The data support a role for dACC in reward-based decision making, and by linking the human and monkey literatures, provide initial support for the existence of heterogeneity within dACC. These findings should be of interest to those studying reward, cognition, emotion, motivation, and motor control.
The function of the mesial prefrontal cortex (MPFC: including Brodman areas 10/12/32) remains an enigma. Current theories suggest a role in representing internal information, including emotional introspection, autonomic control, and a "default state" of semantic processing. Recent evidence also suggests that parts of this region may also play a role in processing reward outcomes. In this study, we investigated the possibility that a region of the MPFC would be preferentially recruited by monetary reward outcomes using a parametric monetary incentive delay (MID) task. Twelve healthy volunteers participated in functional magnetic resonance scans while playing the MID task. Group analyses indicated that while the ventral striatum was recruited by anticipation of monetary reward, a region of the MPFC instead responded to rewarding monetary outcomes. Specifically, volume-of-interest analyses indicated that when volunteers received $5.00 after anticipating a $5.00 win, MPFC activity increased, whereas when volunteers did not receive $5.00 after anticipating a $5.00 win, MPFC activity decreased, relative to outcomes with no incentive value. These findings suggest that in the context of processing monetary rewards, a region of the MPFC preferentially tracks rewarding outcomes.
Influential theories of human emotion argue that subjective feeling states involve representation of bodily responses elicited by emotional events. Within this framework, individual differences in intensity of emotional experience reflect variation in sensitivity to internal bodily responses. We measured regional brain activity by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during an interoceptive task wherein subjects judged the timing of their own heartbeats. We observed enhanced activity in insula, somatomotor and cingulate cortices. In right anterior insular/opercular cortex, neural activity predicted subjects' accuracy in the heartbeat detection task. Furthermore, local gray matter volume in the same region correlated with both interoceptive accuracy and subjective ratings of visceral awareness. Indices of negative emotional experience correlated with interoceptive accuracy across subjects. These findings indicate that right anterior insula supports a representation of visceral responses accessible to awareness, providing a substrate for subjective feeling states.
Conflict monitoring by the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) has been posited to signal a need for greater cognitive control,
producing neural and behavioral adjustments. However, the very occurrence of behavioral adjustments after conflict has been
questioned, along with suggestions that there is no direct evidence of ACC conflict-related activity predicting subsequent
neural or behavioral adjustments in control. Using the Stroop color-naming task and controlling for repetition effects, we
demonstrate that ACC conflict-related activity predicts both greater prefrontal cortex activity and adjustments in behavior,
supporting a role of ACC conflict monitoring in the engagement of cognitive control.
Our ability to have an experience of another's pain is characteristic of empathy. Using functional imaging, we assessed brain
activity while volunteers experienced a painful stimulus and compared it to that elicited when they observed a signal indicating
that their loved one—present in the same room—was receiving a similar pain stimulus. Bilateral anterior insula (AI), rostral
anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), brainstem, and cerebellum were activated when subjects received pain and also by a signal
that a loved one experienced pain. AIand ACC activation correlated with individual empathy scores. Activity in the posterior
insula/secondary somatosensory cortex, the sensorimotor cortex (SI/MI), and the caudal ACC was specific to receiving pain.
Thus, a neural response in AIand rostral ACC, activated in common for “self” and “other” conditions, suggests that the neural
substrate for empathic experience does not involve the entire “pain matrix.” We conclude that only that part of the pain network
associated with its affective qualities, but not its sensory qualities, mediates empathy.
This study examines the relationship of impulsivity, sensation seeking, coping, and substance use to disordered gambling in a sample of 1,339 youth (637 males and 702 females), 17-21 years old. Results indicate that males with serious gambling problems were more likely than their peers to abuse substances and to use avoidant stress-coping strategies, such as seeking emotional outlets, distracting themselves with other activities, and using humor. In contrast, female disordered gamblers were less likely to engage in active coping and planning strategies. Overall, substance use, coping through distraction, and impulsivity proved the most predictive of disordered gambling for males, and intensity seeking and impulsivity proved most predictive for females. Implications for prevention, intervention, and education are discussed.
By analogy to drug dependence, it has been speculated that the underlying pathology in pathological gambling is a reduction in the sensitivity of the reward system. Studying pathological gamblers and controls during a guessing game using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we observed a reduction of ventral striatal and ventromedial prefrontal activation in the pathological gamblers that was negatively correlated with gambling severity, linking hypoactivation of these areas to disease severity.
Anticipated reward magnitude and probability comprise dual components of expected value (EV), a cornerstone of economic and psychological theory. However, the neural mechanisms that compute EV have not been characterized. Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined neural activation as subjects anticipated monetary gains and losses that varied in magnitude and probability. Group analyses indicated that, although the subcortical nucleus accumbens (NAcc) activated proportional to anticipated gain magnitude, the cortical mesial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) additionally activated according to anticipated gain probability. Individual difference analyses indicated that, although NAcc activation correlated with self-reported positive arousal, MPFC activation correlated with probability estimates. These findings suggest that mesolimbic brain regions support the computation of EV in an ascending and distributed manner: whereas subcortical regions represent an affective component, cortical regions also represent a probabilistic component, and, furthermore, may integrate the two.
People and animals often demonstrate strong attraction or aversion to options with uncertain or risky rewards, yet the neural substrate of subjective risk preferences has rarely been investigated. Here we show that monkeys systematically preferred the risky target in a visual gambling task in which they chose between two targets offering the same mean reward but differing in reward uncertainty. Neuronal activity in posterior cingulate cortex (CGp), a brain area linked to visual orienting and reward processing, increased when monkeys made risky choices and scaled with the degree of risk. CGp activation was better predicted by the subjective salience of a chosen target than by its actual value. These data suggest that CGp signals the subjective preferences that guide visual orienting.
Reciprocal connections between the orbitofrontal cortex and the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala may provide a critical circuit for the learning that underlies goal-directed behavior. We examined neural activity in rat orbitofrontal cortex and basolateral amygdala during instrumental learning in an olfactory discrimination task. Neurons in both regions fired selectively during the anticipation of rewarding or aversive outcomes. This selective activity emerged early in training, before the rats had learned reliably to avoid the aversive outcome. The results support the concept that the basolateral amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex cooperate to encode information that may be used to guide goal-directed behavior.
We discuss the cognitive and the psy- chophysical determinants of choice in risky and risk- less contexts. The psychophysics of value induce risk aversion in the domain of gains and risk seeking in the domain of losses. The psychophysics of chance induce overweighting of sure things and of improbable events, relative to events of moderate probability. De- cision problems can be described or framed in multiple ways that give rise to different preferences, contrary to the invariance criterion of rational choice. The pro- cess of mental accounting, in which people organize the outcomes of transactions, explains some anomalies of consumer behavior. In particular, the acceptability of an option can depend on whether a negative outcome is evaluated as a cost or as an uncompensated loss. The relation between decision values and experience values is discussed. Making decisions is like speaking prose—people do it all the time, knowingly or unknowingly. It is hardly surprising, then, that the topic of decision making is shared by many disciplines, from mathematics and statistics, through economics and political science, to sociology and psychology. The study of decisions ad- dresses both normative and descriptive questions. The normative analysis is concerned with the nature of rationality and the logic of decision making. The de- scriptive analysis, in contrast, is concerned with peo- ple's beliefs and preferences as they are, not as they should be. The tension between normative and de- scriptive considerations characterizes much of the study of judgment and choice. Analyses of decision making commonly distin- guish risky and riskless choices. The paradigmatic example of decision under risk is the acceptability of a gamble that yields monetary outcomes with specified probabilities. A typical riskless decision concerns the acceptability of a transaction in which a good or a service is exchanged for money or labor. In the first part of this article we present an analysis of the cog- nitive and psychophysical factors that determine the value of risky prospects. In the second part we extend this analysis to transactions and trades. Risky Choice Risky choices, such as whether or not to take an umbrella and whether or not to go to war, are made without advance knowledge of their consequences. Because the consequences of such actions depend on uncertain events such as the weather or the opponent's resolve, the choice of an act may be construed as the acceptance of a gamble that can yield various out- comes with different probabilities. It is therefore nat- ural that the study of decision making under risk has focused on choices between simple gambles with monetary outcomes and specified probabilities, in the hope that these simple problems will reveal basic at- titudes toward risk and value. We shall sketch an approach to risky choice that
An analysis of the gambling process, a review of gambling research, and a survey of philosophical, phenomenological, and theoretical interpretations of gambling suggest that the motives for gambling are highly complex. However, many similarities were found between anecdotal accounts of gamblers' experiences and the philosophical, phenomenological, and theoretical interpretations of the gambling process. Many of the research studies corroborated both the anecdotal accounts and the interpretations. The most fruitful and veridical findings seem to come from studies that recognized gambling as adult play. The significance of studying gambling as play readily revealed itself, and it is hoped that future research expands on the existential and transpersonal nature of this aspect of gambling. We have come a long way in increasing our knowledge of gambling since Bergler's original interpretation of gambling as psychic masochism. Gambling may be psychic masochism for some, but it is without doubt psychic play pleasure for the vast majority of persons who gamble.
The typical functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) study presents a formidable problem of multiple statistical comparisons (i.e, > 10,000 in a 128 x 128 image). To protect against false positives, investigators have typically relied on decreasing the per pixel false positive probability. This approach incurs an inevitable loss of power to detect statistically significant activity. An alternative approach, which relies on the assumption that areas of true neural activity will tend to stimulate signal changes over contiguous pixels, is presented. If one knows the probability distribution of such cluster sizes as a function of per pixel false positive probability, one can use cluster-size thresholds independently to reject false positives. Both Monte Carlo simulations and fMRI studies of human subjects have been used to verify that this approach can improve statistical power by as much as fivefold over techniques that rely solely on adjusting per pixel false positive probabilities.
Current approaches to detecting significantly activated regions of cerebral tissue use statistical parametric maps, which are thresholded to render the probability of one or more activated regions of one voxel, or larger, suitably small (e. g., 0.05). We present an approximate analysis giving the probability that one or more activated regions of a specified volume, or larger, could have occurred by chance. These results mean that detecting significant activations no longer depends on a fixed (and high) threshold, but can be effected at any (lower) threshold, in terms of the spatial extent of the activated region. The substantial improvement in sensitivity that ensues is illustrated using a power analysis and a simulated phantom activation study. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Discusses the cognitive and the psychophysical determinants of choice in risky and riskless contexts. The psychophysics of value induce risk aversion in the domain of gains and risk seeking in the domain of losses. The psychophysics of chance induce overweighting of sure things and of improbable events, relative to events of moderate probability. Decision problems can be described or framed in multiple ways that give rise to different preferences, contrary to the invariance criterion of rational choice. The process of mental accounting, in which people organize the outcomes of transactions, explains some anomalies of consumer behavior. In particular, the acceptability of an option can depend on whether a negative outcome is evaluated as a cost or as an uncompensated loss. The relationships between decision values and experience values and between hedonic experience and objective states are discussed. (27 ref)
Impaired control occupies a focal position in the medical model perspective of pathological gambling and is central to the concept of addictive processes generally. Nonetheless there have been few studies on self-control in gambling behaviour. A questionnaire was developed to measure subjectively assessed self-control in poker machine players. This Self-Control Scale comprised a framework adopted from Cameron (1985) distinguishing between (i) the likelihood of starting a session and continuing a session, and (ii) internal and external determinants. The Scale and a descriptive questionnaire on demographics and actual gambling behaviour was administered to 26 problem gamblers and 40 players of different levels of involvement. The results indicated that the Scale had acceptable internal consistency and validity. The Scale effectively discriminated between problem and non-problem players. The differences on specific items between low-frequency, high-frequency and problem groups were incorporated into a hypothetical developmental progression. Negative emotions such as frustration and depression and the belief in chasing (Lesieur, 1979, 1984) were perceived to be the most significant determinants of impaired control problem gamblers.
Off-course belling agency customers (N = 172) were assessed by a brief structured interview and by a questionnaire that included; the Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS Form V), a short form of the State portion of the State-Trait Anxiety questionnaire designed to assess subjective reports of levels of arousal after betting but prior to the race result, a question assessing the frequency of chasing and questions about other aspects of betting behaviour. Contrary to the hypothesis of Zuckerman (1979) the results showed that male bettors as a group were significantly lower on SSS scores than existing population norms. Despite the restricted range of these scores weak but significant relationships were shown between SSS subscales and level of involvement in betting. Chasing was shown to be a central feature of a group of out-of-control betting behaviours. Sensation Seeking scores were positively correlated with level of involvement and the relationship found between the Boredom Susceptibility subscale and arousal was tentatively highlighted as an individual difference that would predispose a person to greater loss of control and possible problematic levels of gambling.
The insula sends neural efferents to cortical areas from which it receives reciprocal afferent projections. A collective consideration of afferents and efferents indicates that the insula has connections with principal sensory areas in the olfactory, gustatory, somesthetic (SI and SII), and auditory AI and AII) modalities. There are additional connections with association areas for the visual (TEm), auditory (supratemporal plane), and somesthetic (posterior parietal cortex) modalities; with parameter cortex (area 6 and perhaps MII); with polymodal association cortex; and with a wide range of paralimbic areas in the orbital, temporopolar, and cingulate areas.
The topographic distribution of these connections suggests that the posterodorsal insula is specialized for auditory-somesthetic-skeletomotor function whereas the anteroventral insula is related to olfactory-gustatory-autonomic function. Most of the insula, especially its anteroventral portions, have extensive interconnections with limbic structures. Through its connections with the amygdala, the insula provides a pathway for somatosen-sory, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and visceral sensations to reach the limbic system.
The cortical areas connected with the granular sector of the insula are also granular in architecture whereas virtually all the connections of the agranular insula arise from allocortical, agranular, or dysgranular areas. Thus, there is a correspondence between the architecture of insular sectors and the areas with which they have connections. The insula is heavily interconnected with temporopolar and lateral orbital areas. Furthermore, many cortical connections of the lateral orbital cortex are quite similar to those of the insula. These common connectivity patterns support the conclusion, based on architectonic observations, that the insulo-orbito-tempo-ropolar component of the paralimbic brain should be considered as an integrated unit of cerebral organization.
The typical functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) study presents a formidable problem of multiple statistical comparisons (i.e., > 10,000 in a 128 x 128 image). To protect against false positives, investigators have typically relied on decreasing the per pixel false positive probability. This approach incurs an inevitable loss of power to detect statistically significant activity. An alternative approach, which relies on the assumption that areas of true neural activity will tend to stimulate signal changes over contiguous pixels, is presented. If one knows the probability distribution of such cluster sizes as a function of per pixel false positive probability, one can use cluster-size thresholds independently to reject false positives. Both Monte Carlo simulations and fMRI studies of human subjects have been used to verify that this approach can improve statistical power by as much as fivefold over techniques that rely solely on adjusting per pixel false positive probabilities.