We will provide a general overview on neurophysiological aspects of
pathological gambling, a form of nonsubstance addiction, including
evidence that dopamine neurons of the ventral midbrain are activated
by reward uncertainity. Dopamine in the state of excessive gambling
may reinforce its addictive properties.
In addition,wewill present neuropsychological evidence demonstrating
that pathological gambling is related to a deficit in impulse control associated
with attention deficit that impairs concentration, executive
functions, and especially memory. The relationship between anxiety
and selective disturbances in thevisuo-spatialmemorywill finally be considered
under the point of view of the cognitive competition hypothesis.
Further, we will present our actual project in which we investigate
whether these pathological gambling-related deficits will have an influence
on spatial memorization capacities as a function of anticipated
reward.