Travel Grant: “Do Pathological Gamblers Suffer from a Distorted Sensitivity to Reward?”

Principal Investigator: Guillaume Sescousse, PhD, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, the Netherlands
Awarded $1,500 in 2013

The Travel Grant supported Dr. Sescousee’s participation as a speaker at the 2013 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. His research suggests a distorted sensitivity to reward in disordered gamblers. From a clinical perspective, the findings suggest that enhancing the prominence of non-monetary rewards may be a fruitful strategy as part of a therapeutic approach.

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Travel Grant: “Gambling and the Onset of Comorbid Mental Disorders: A Longitudinal Study Evaluating Severity and Specific Symptoms”

Principal Investigator: Iman Parhami, MD, MPH, Delaware Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Awarded $1,500 in 2013

The Travel Grant supported Dr. Parhami’s participation in the annual meeting of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry where he gave a presentation on a study of the gambling data in the NESARC (National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions).

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Large Grant: “Evaluation and Implementation of Personalized Normative Feedback for CollegeGambling.org”

Principal Investigator: Clayton Neighbors, PhD, University of Houston
Awarded $233,570 in 2014

Aim: Evaluate the efficacy of the first-ever online screen/brief intervention for gambling among college and university students, hosted by the NCRG’s website, CollegeGambling.org, in a nationwide sample.

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Large Grant: “Biobehavioral Assessment and Validation of Animal Phenotype of Pathological Gambling”

Principal Investigator: Martin Zack, PhD, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)
Awarded $101,200 in 2014

Aim: Develop an animal model that accurately reflects the brain and behavioral profile of disordered gambling in order to test medications to treat the specific needs of people with a gambling disorder.

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Large Grant: “Modifying the Automatic Approach Bias toward Gambling Stimuli in Problem Gamblers: A Novel Intervention for Changing Excessive Gambling Behavior”

Principal Investigator: Sherry H. Stewart, PhD, Dalhousie University
Awarded $172,500 in 2014

Aim: Understand the implicit thought patterns that could play a role in the development of a gambling disorder, by exploring whether or not disordered gamblers have an “approach bias” (i.e. the automatic tendency to approach or conduct a risky-behavior rather than avoid it).

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Large Grant: “Personality Traits, Affective Context and Pathological Gambling: An Experience Sampling Approach”

Principal Investigator: Donald R. Lynam, PhD, Purdue University
Awarded $172,037 in 2014

Aim: Develop a model to understand the intersecting factors of affect and impulse control traits on the development of a gambling disorder in order to allow for tailored interventions for disordered gamblers.

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Seed Grant: “Discontinuity and Change Among Disordered Gamblers”

Principal Investigator: Michael J.A. Wohl, PhD, Carleton University
Awarded $27,772 in 2014

Aim: Determine what factors influence a person’s readiness to change behavior and receive help for a gambling disorder.

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Seed Grant: “Risk and Resilience among Native American Youth in the Pacific Northwest”

Principal Investigator: Debi A. LaPlante, PhD, Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance
Awarded $34,447 in 2014

Aim: Better understand risk and resilience factors among Native American youth who will be assessed at regular community events, in partnership with the Healing Lodge of Seven Nations.

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Seed Grant: “Assessing Risk-preference and Compulsive Behavior in a Rodent Gambling Task”

Principal Investigator: Jamie Donahey Roitman, PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago
Awarded $34,500 in 2014

Aim: Devise an animal model of disordered gambling to understand the extent to which risky decision-making processes are innate or altered by experience; how different patterns of neural activity drive behavior toward risk-seeking or avoidance; and how therapeutic methods can alter neural activity to reduce disordered gambling behavior.

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Post-doctoral Individual Fellowship Grant: “On the Usefulness of Training Motor Response Inhibition Under Craving States in Individuals with Gambling Disorder”

Principal Investigator: Damien Brevers, PhD, University of Southern California
Awarded $169,861 in 2014

Aim: Understand the interactions between inhibition control, impulsivity and craving processes in addiction at a behavioral and neurobiological level.

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Brevers, D., Noël, X., He, Q., Melrose, J. A., & Bechara, A. (2015). Increased ventral-striatal activity during monetary decision making is a marker of problem poker gambling severity. Addiction Biology. http://doi.org/10.1111/adb.12239

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