Principal Investigator: James P. Whelan, Ph.D., University of Memphis
Awarded $57,384 in 2004
Aim: Test the efficacy of treating college students who both drink and gamble to excess with a treatment that is a modification of Guided Self-Change intervention, one of the most well supported brief treatments for alcohol and other substance abuse problems.
Principal Investigator: Robert G. Rychtarik, Ph.D., The Research Foundation of SUNY on behalf of the University at Buffalo/Research Institute on Addictions
Awarded $57,500 in 2004
Aim: Test the efficacy of Behavioral Couples Therapy (BCT), a spouse-involved treatment shown to be effective for other addictions, for gambling disorder.
Principal Investigator: Anne Helene Skinstad, Ph.D., University of Iowa, The Prairielands Addiction Technology Transfer Center
Awarded $168,941 in 2006
Aim: Address the dearth of knowledge about the professional workforce charged with preventing and treating problem gambling through a survey that will help form a strategy for the design and development of an evidence-based curriculum for delivery to gambling treatment professionals.
Principal Investigator: Catharine A. Winstanley, Ph.D., University of British Columbia
Awarded $57,500 in 2006
Aim: Develop and test a novel model of gambling behavior in rats based on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) to determine if the rat IGT (RIGT) is a valid model of gambling behavior and whether damage to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and basolateral amygdala (BLA) increases risky decision-making in keeping with data from human studies.
Zeeb, F.D., Robbins, T.W., & Winstanley, C.A. (2009). Serotonergic and dopaminergic modulation of gambling behavior as assessed using a novel rat gambling task. Neuropsychopharmacology, 34, 2329–2343; doi:10.1038/npp.2009.62
Zeeb, F. D., Floresco, S. B., & Winstanley, C. A. (2010). Contributions of the orbitofrontal cortex to impulsive choice: interactions with basal levels of impulsivity, dopamine signalling, and reward-related cues. Psychopharmacology, 211(1), 87-98.
Principal Investigator: Donald W. Black, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa
Awarded $172,500 in 2006
Aim: Test the hypothesis that persons with a gambling disorder will perform more poorly on measures of executive function (e.g., decision-making), attention and impulsivity, but that general intelligence and memory will not differ.
Principal Investigator: Shelly B. Flagel, Ph.D., Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute, University of Michigan
Awarded $56,197 in 2006
Aim: Create a viable model of pathological gambling that addresses both the impulsivity and risk-taking dimensions of the disorder.
Flagel, S. B., Robinson, T. E., Clark, J. J., Clinton, S. M., Watson, S. J., Seeman, P., & Akil, H. (2010). An Animal Model of Genetic Vulnerability to Behavioral Disinhibition and Responsiveness to Reward-Related Cues: Implications for Addiction. Neuropsychopharmacology, 35(2), 388–400. http://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2009.142
Flagel, S. B., Akil, H., & Robinson, T. E. (2009). Individual differences in the attribution of incentive salience to reward-related cues: Implications for addiction. Neuropharmacology, 56, 139-148.
Principal Investigator: Anna E. Goudriaan, Ph.D., University of Amsterdam
Awarded $57,436 in 2006
Aim: Analyze gambling patterns, changes over time in gambling patterns, at-risk gambling and gambling problems in sample of 2,470 college students, thus filling the need for longitudinal studies on sub-clinical gambling problems.
Goudriaan, A. E., Grekin, E. R., & Sher, K. J. (2007). Decision making and binge drinking: a longitudinal study. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 31(6), 928–38. http://doi.org/ACER378 [pii] 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2007.00378.x
Goudriaan, A. E., Slutske, W. S., Krull, J. L., & Sher, K. J. (2009). Longitudinal patterns of gambling activities and associated risk factors in college students. Addiction, 104(7), 1219–1232. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2009.02573.x
Principal Investigator: Jakob Linnet, Ph.D., Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark
Awarded $149,185 in 2006
Aim: Test the hypothesis that pathological gamblers have a lower dopamine concentration and a higher dopamine release during gambling compared with healthy controls; that other factors, such as personality traits such as sensation seeking, influence the dopamine release during gambling; and, that dopamine binding potential and occupancy are associated (directly or indirectly) with cognitive bias of gambling performance.
Linnet, J., Peterson, E., Daudet, D.J., Gjedde, A., & Moller, A. (2010). Dopamine release in ventral striatum of pathological gamblers losing money. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 122, 326-333.
Linnet, J., Møller, A., Peterson, E., Gjedde, A., & Doudet, D. (2011). Dopamine release in ventral striatum during Iowa Gambling Task performance is associated with increased excitement levels in pathological gambling. Addiction, 106(2), 383-390.
Principal Investigator: Brett A. Clementz, Ph.D., University of Georgia
Awarded $167,088 in 2006
Aim: Investigate differences between problem and non-problem gamblers concerning the spatial and temporal patterns of brain functioning that support decision-making.
Principal Investigator: Ron Kessler, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School
Awarded $115,000 in 2006
Aim: Analyze the gambling data collected for the 2001-2003 version of the National Comorbidity Replication Survey, the landmark study of mental health among 9,000 households in the U.S., funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.
Kessler, R. C., Hwang, I., LaBrie, R., Petukhova, M., Sampson, N. A., Winters, K. C., & Shaffer, H. J. (2008). DSM-IV pathological gambling in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Psychological Medicine, 38(9), 1351–60. http://doi.org/S0033291708002900 [pii] 10.1017/S0033291708002900
