William Atkins
Tuesday, 17 February 2009 21:10
Science -
Health
Page 1 of 4
Researchers from the United Kingdom found that gamblers who have near-misses while playing slot machines are stimulating parts of their brains that involve addictions in humans and increase their desire to continue gambling.
The article “
Gambling Near-Misses Enhance Motivation to Gamble and Recruit Win-Related Brain Circuitry” was published in the February 12, 2009 issue of the journal
Neuron.
Its authors are Luke Clark, Andrew J. Lawrence, Frances Astley-Jones, and Nicola Gray, all from the Behavioral and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, Department of Experimental Psychology, at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
They state in the abstract to their paper that
“’Near-miss’ events, where unsuccessful outcomes are proximal to the jackpot, increase gambling propensity and may be associated with the addictiveness of gambling.”
In other words, when a person almost wins at a gambling game, circuits in the brain are activated that strengthens the motivation to gamble more.
Such actions within the brain may be the genetic link to gambling addictions.
Such neurocognitive mechanisms in the brain, however, are little studied in the medical profession as to just how strong they are in motivating gamblers to gamble more—and, maybe, eventually to becoming addicted to gambling.
Consequently, the U.K. researchers decided to study these behavioral and neural responses to these “near-misses” in gambling.
Page two talks about the experiment: gambling with a slot machine and people's reactions to "near-misses."
