Reward-system effect and “left hemispheric unbalance”: a comparison between drug addiction and high-BAS healthy subjects on gambling behavior

Abstract

Recent studies show the similarity of reward-related neurocircuitry and behavioral patterns between pathological gamblers and substance addictive patients. Evidences proved that pathological gambling (PG) and Substance Use Disorders (SUD) are associated with deficits in frontal lobe function and that they show similar behaviors to that of patients with bilateral VMPFC lesions. The present article aimed to compare the results of two studies concerning the relationship between the Behavioral Activation System (BAS) and the hemispheric lateralisation effect that supports the gambling behavior in addiction disease. In the two studies we considered a group of Cocaine Addictive (CA) patients and high-BAS healthy subjects who were tested using the Iowa Gambling Task. Also metacognitive questionary and alpha band modulation were considered. It was found that the “left hemisphere unbalance” may be considered as a critical marker of dysfunctional decision-making in addictive behaviors (drug addiction and gambling behaviours) and a factor able to explain the tendency to opt in favor of more reward-related conditions.

Keywords

• Addiction
• Iowa Gambling Task
• Alpha brain oscillation
• BAS