Ordinary gamblers use already proven strategies to increase rewards

In the pursuit of the ultimate reward, people with gambling disorder are less reliant on exploring new but potentially better strategies, and more on courses. proven action that has led to success in the past. The neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain may play an important role in this, a study in biological psychology conducted at the Faculty of Human Sciences of the University of Cologne by Professor Dr Jan Peters und Dr Antonius Wiehler. The article ‘Extended supervised study during reinforcement learning in gambling disorder’ has appeared in the latest edition of the Iris Neuroscience, published by the Society for Neuroscience.

Gambling disorder affects just under one percent of the population – often men – and is in some ways similar to substance abuse disorders. Scientists suspect that this disorder, like other addictive disorders, is associated with changes in the dopamine system. The brain’s reward system releases the neurotransmitter dopamine during gambling. Because dopamine is important for the planning and control of actions, among other things, it may influence strategic learning processes.

Gambling disorder is scientifically interesting among other things because it is a disorder of slavery that is not related to specific content. “

Dr. Dr. Jan Peters, Author

The psychologists studied how gamblers plan their actions to maximize rewards – how their reinforcement learning works. In the study, participants had to decide between already tested or new options in order to gain as much as possible. At the same time, the scientists used magnetic resonance imaging to measure activity in areas of the brain that are important for processing reward stimuli and design tasks.

Twenty-three ordinary gamblers and twenty-three control subjects (all male) performed what is known as the ‘act of a four-armed robber’. The name of this type of decision-making work refers to slot machines, suddenly referred to as ‘one-armed bandits’. In each run, participants had to choose between four options (‘four-armed thief’, in this case four colored squares), and their wins slowly changed. Different strategies can be used here.

For example, one can choose an option that yielded the highest profit last time. However, it is also possible to choose the option where the chance of winning is uncertain – the option promises maximum information advantage. The latter is called a guided (or uncertainty-based) study.

Each group earned approximately the same amount of money and presented a guided study. However, this was significantly lower in the group of gamblers than in the control group. These results show that gamblers are less flexible to changing environments during reinforcement learning. At the neural level, gamblers showed changes in a network of brain regions that have been associated with guided study in previous studies.

In one previous study by the two biological psychologists, an increase in medication level in healthy participants had shown a very similar effect on behavior. ‘While this indicates that dopamine may play an important role in the reduction of directed study in gamblers, more research is needed to confirm such a correlation,’ said Dr Antonius Wiehler.

Further research also needs to clarify whether the observed changes in decision-making behavior in gamblers are a risk factor for, or as a result of, consistent gambling.