Neurophysiology of Gambling Behavior and Internet Use Vulnerability: A Comparison Between Behavioral and EEG Measures

Religiosity, Financial Risk Taking, and Reward Processing: An Experimental Study

The present study investigated the extent to which financial risk-taking (FRT) perspectives and religiosity influenced an individual's performance on financial decision-making tasks under risk and/or uncertainty. It further investigated the potential to measure this interaction using electro-encephalogram (EEG) assessments through reward-related event-related potentials (P3 and FRN). EEG data were collected from 37 participants undergoing four decision-making tasks comprising the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), Iowa Gambling Test (IGT), Mixed-Gamble Loss-Aversion Task (MGLAT), and MGLA-Success Task (MGLAST). The present study found that BART performance may be affected by an interaction of FRT perspectives and religiosity. The physiological effects of task feedback were also distinguished between religious and non-religious individuals objectively with EEG data. Overall, while religiosity and FRT may not significantly influence IGT and MGLA performance, and interact with BART in a complex way, physiological reaction towards feedback after BART performance appears to be strongly affected by religiosity and FRT perspectives.

Dissociation of prepotent response inhibition and interference control in problematic internet use: evidence from the Go/No-Go and Flanker tasks

BACKGROUND

Problematic Internet Use (PIU), characterized by failures to control the overuse of internet, is associated with a range of functional impairments. However, there is limited research on the specific impact of PIU on inhibitory control functions, particularly in terms of differentiating between prepotent response inhibition and interference control. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to investigate these two components of inhibitory control in individuals with PIU.

METHODS

Thirty participants who met the PIU criteria and 30 control participants were included in the present study. All participants completed the Go/No-Go and Flanker tasks, in which internet-related images and words were used as task stimuli.

RESULTS

In the Go/No-Go task, all participants exhibited poorer performance in inhibiting internet-related stimuli compared to internet-unrelated stimuli, during the No-Go trials. In the Flanker task, results revealed a three-way interaction of Group, Stimulus type and Congruency. Specifically, in the incongruent condition, participants with PIU exhibited slower responses for internet-unrelated targets compared to internet-related targets, whereas no similar effect was observed among individuals with low internet use.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings suggest that difficulties in controlling the interference effect of internet-related information represent a key dysfunction in inhibitory control of PIU.

A Comparative Event-Related Potentials Study between Alcohol Use Disorder, Gambling Disorder and Healthy Control Subjects through a Contextual Go/NoGo Task

(1) Background: Inhibitory and rewarding processes that mediate attentional biases to addiction-related cues may slightly differ between patients suffering from alcohol use (AUD) or gambling (GD) disorder. (2) Methods: 23 AUD inpatients, 19 GD patients, and 22 healthy controls performed four separate Go/NoGo tasks, in, respectively, an alcohol, gambling, food, and neutral long-lasting cueing context during the recording of event-related potentials (ERPs). (3) Results: AUD patients showed a poorer inhibitory performance than controls (slower response latencies, lower N2d, and delayed P3d components). In addition, AUD patients showed a preserved inhibitory performance in the alcohol-related context (but a more disrupted one in the food-related context), while GD patients showed a specific inhibitory deficit in the game-related context, both indexed by N2d amplitude modulations. (4) Conclusions: Despite sharing common addiction-related mechanisms, AUD and GD patients showed different patterns of response to (non-)rewarding cues that should be taken into account in the therapeutic context.