Gambling Paradigm Research Articles

Noradrenergic regulation of cue-guided decision making and impulsivity is doubly dissociable across frontal brain regions

RationaleWin-paired stimuli can promote risk taking in experimental gambling paradigms in both rats and humans. We previously demonstrated that atomoxetine, a noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor, and guanfacine, a selective α2A adrenergic receptor agonist, reduced risk taking on the cued rat gambling task (crGT), a rodent assay of risky choice in which wins are accompanied by salient cues. Both compounds also decreased impulsive premature responding.ObjectiveThe key neural loci mediating these effects were unknown. The lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), which are highly implicated in risk assessment, action selection, and impulse control, receive dense noradrenergic innervation. We therefore infused atomoxetine and guanfacine directly into either the lOFC or prelimbic (PrL) mPFC prior to task performance.ResultsWhen infused into the lOFC, atomoxetine improved decision making score and adaptive lose-shift behaviour in males, but not in females, without altering motor impulsivity. Conversely, intra-PrL atomoxetine improved impulse control in risk preferring animals of both sexes, but did not alter decision making. Guanfacine administered into the PrL, but not lOFC, also altered motor impulsivity in all subjects, though in the opposite direction to atomoxetine.ConclusionsThese data highlight a double dissociation between the behavioural effects of noradrenergic signaling across frontal regions with respect to risky choice and impulsive action. Given that the influence of noradrenergic manipulations on motor impulsivity could depend on baseline risk preference, these data also suggest that the noradrenaline system may function differently in subjects that are susceptible to the risk-promoting lure of win-associated cues.

Excitatory stimulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reduces cognitive gambling biases via improved feedback learning

Humans are subject to a variety of cognitive biases, such as the framing-effect or the gambler's fallacy, that lead to decisions unfitting of a purely rational agent. Previous studies have shown that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) plays a key role in making rational decisions and that stronger vmPFC activity is associated with attenuated cognitive biases. Accordingly, dysfunctions of the vmPFC are associated with impulsive decisions and pathological gambling. By applying a gambling paradigm in a between-subjects design with 33 healthy adults, we demonstrate that vmPFC excitation via transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) reduces the framing-effect and the gambler's fallacy compared to sham stimulation. Corresponding magnetoencephalographic data suggest improved inhibition of maladaptive options after excitatory vmPFC-tDCS. Our analyses suggest that the underlying mechanism might be improved reinforcement learning, as effects only emerge over time. These findings encourage further investigations of whether excitatory vmPFC-tDCS has clinical utility in treating pathological gambling or other behavioral addictions.

The Bangor Gambling Task: Computerized replication and reappraisal of an emotion-based decision task

Emotion-based decision making (EBDM) is the capacity to make decisions based on prior emotional consequences of actions. Several neuropsychological tasks, using different gambling paradigms and with different levels of complexity, have been designed to assess EBDM. The Bangor Gambling Task (BGT) was created as a brief and simple card gambling-task to assess EBDM. BGT contains a single-card deck and requires participants to decide whether to gamble or not, which can result in wins or losses. Unknown to the participant, the winning probabilities decrease throughout the task (from 0.75 in the first block to 0.25 in the fifth block), requiring participants to reduce their gambling probability to avoid long-term losses. A few studies have offered evidence regarding the BGT convergent validity. However, there are no computerized versions of BGT available, thus slowing the process of gathering information to explore the EBDM mechanisms behind the task, its validity, and clinical usefulness. In this article, we present a computerized version of the BGT using the Matlab environment and make all our code available. We explore BGT’s replicability and analyze its probabilistic structure, providing trial-level and block-level analyses. Eighty-one participants performed the computerized version, which followed the same structure as the original version. It took participants 8.5 ± 3.3 minutes to complete the task, which is faster than the paper version. Replicating previous studies, participants diminished their gambling probability throughout the task, learning to inhibit the initially rewarded gambling behavior. This change in gambling probability could be considered a proxy for EBDM. Our analyses suggest that the last blocks are especially sensitive to capturing deficits in EBDM, and we propose some modifications to BGT’s original version to enhance the initial exploratory and learning phase. Our results show that the BGT constitutes a quick and simple task to evaluate EBDM capacities.

Distinct neural activations correlate with maximization of reward magnitude versus frequency.

Choice selection strategies and decision-making are typically investigated using multiple-choice gambling paradigms that require participants to maximize expected value of rewards. However, research shows that performance in such paradigms suffers from individual biases towards the frequency of gains such that users often choose smaller frequent gains over larger rarely occurring gains, also referred to as melioration. To understand the basis of this subjective tradeoff, we used a simple 2-choice reward task paradigm in 186 healthy human adult subjects sampled across the adult lifespan. Cortical source reconstruction of simultaneously recorded electroencephalography suggested distinct neural correlates for maximizing reward magnitude versus frequency. We found that activations in the parahippocampal and entorhinal areas, which are typically linked to memory function, specifically correlated with maximization of reward magnitude. In contrast, maximization of reward frequency was correlated with activations in the lateral orbitofrontal cortices and operculum, typical areas involved in reward processing. These findings reveal distinct neural processes serving reward frequency versus magnitude maximization that can have clinical translational utility to optimize decision-making.

The futility of decision making research

We have each spent more than 50 years doing research that has had little impact. Even more lamentable is that our field, judgment and decision making (JDM), has on the whole had little impact during that span. We attribute that failure to the use of methodologies that emphasize testing models rather than looking for differences in behavior. The “cognitive revolution” led the field astray, toward the goal of studying model fit rather than comparing observable results. With modeling as the goal, experimentation was stultified. Simple tasks became dominant. Although a poor metaphor for real decision making, the gambling paradigm has lasted forever because the inputs to the decision are known to the researcher and thus easily modeled.

Examining Social Cognition with Embodied Robots: Does Prior Experience with a Robot Impact Feedback-associated Learning in a Gambling Task?

Social agents rely on the ability to use feedback to learn and modify their behavior. The extent to which this happens in social contexts depends on motivational, cognitive and/or affective parameters. For instance, feedback-associated learning occurs at different rates when the outcome of an action (e.g., winning or losing in a gambling task) affects oneself (“Self”) versus another human (“Other”). Here, we examine whether similar context effects on feedback-associated learning can also be observed when the “other” is a social robot (here: Cozmo). We additionally examine whether a “hybrid” version of the gambling paradigm, where participants are free to engage in a dynamic interaction with a robot, then move to a controlled screen-based experiment can be used to examine social cognition in human-robot interaction. This hybrid method is an alternative to current designs where researchers examine the effect of the interaction on social cognition during the interaction with the robot. For that purpose, three groups of participants (n total = 60) interacted with Cozmo over different time periods (no interaction vs. a single 20 minute interaction in the lab vs. daily 20 minute interactions over five consecutive days at home) before performing the gambling task in the lab. The results indicate that prior interactions impact the degree to which participants benefit from feedback during the gambling task, with overall worse learning immediately after short-term interactions with the robot and better learning in the “Self” versus “Other” condition after repeated interactions with the robot. These results indicate that “hybrid” paradigms are a suitable option to investigate social cognition in human-robot interaction when a fully dynamic implementation (i.e., interaction and measurement dynamic) is not feasible.

Reward mechanism of depressive episodes in bipolar disorder: Enhanced theta power in feedback-related negativity

IntroductionThis study aimed to explore the reward-related neural mechanism in patients with depressive mood in bipolar disorder (BD) using event-related potentials. It remains unknown whether or not different neurobiological markers underlying depression symptoms in BD depression and major depression disorder (MDD). Methods24 patients with BD depression and 20 healthy controls were included. Participants underwent evaluation with the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS), followed by the classical gambling paradigm, while undergoing 64-channel electroencephalography. The waveform of feedback-related negativity (FRN) was extracted from the 250–350 ms time-window after participants received feedback regarding loss or gain. Event-related potential datasets were obtained using time-frequency analysis. Results(1) The TEPS scores of the patients were significantly lower than those of the controls [t(42) = 5.16, p < 0.01]. (2) The event of loss elicited a deeper FRN in patients than that in controls [t(42) = 2.19, p < 0.05], while no difference was observed in the event of gains (t(42) = 1.12, p > 0.05). (3) Theta power rooted in FRN in patients was significantly higher in loss than in gain [F(1,42) = 30.32, p < 0.01]. (4) Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) illustrated the interaction effect of theta power in gain/loss between two groups [F(1,42) = 3.59, p = 0.06]. LimitationOur study did not analyze the effect of different drugs which might affect our results. ConclusionThe enhanced reflection of negative feedback was consistent with the negative bias, impulse control impairment, and emotional dysregulation observed in the bipolar disorder spectrum. We suggested that the extreme theta power generated from the anterior cingulate gyrus (ACC) might be the main component of abnormal FRN.

Noradrenergic contributions to cue-driven risk-taking and impulsivity.

The flashing lights and sounds of modern casinos are alluring and may contribute to the addictive nature of gambling. Such cues can have a profound impact on the noradrenaline (NA) system, which could therefore be a viable therapeutic target for gambling disorder (GD). While there is substantial evidence to support the involvement of NA in the impulsive symptoms of GD, its function in mediating the "pro-addictive" impact of cues is less understood. We wished to investigate the role of NA in our rodent assay of decision making and impulsivity, the cued rat gambling task (crGT). Given that sex differences are prominent in addiction disorders, and increasingly reported in the monoaminergic regulation of behaviour, we also prioritised evaluating noradrenergic drugs in both sexes. Female and male rats were trained to stability on the crGT and then given intraperitoneal injections of the noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor atomoxetine, the α2A receptor agonist guanfacine, the beta receptor antagonist propranolol, and the α2 receptor antagonist yohimbine. Atomoxetine dose-dependently improved decision-making score. Guanfacine selectively enhanced decision making in risk-preferring males and optimal performing females. Propranolol and yohimbine did not influence decision making. Atomoxetine and guanfacine reduced premature responses, while yohimbine bi-phasically affected this index of motor impulsivity. These results support the hypothesis that NA is an important neuromodulator of the cue-induced deficits in decision making observed in laboratory-based gambling paradigms, and suggest that NAergic drugs like atomoxetine and guanfacine may be useful in treating GD.

The Disjunction Effect in two-stage simulated gambles. An experimental study and comparison of a heuristic logistic, Markov and quantum-like model

Savage’s rational axiom of decision making under uncertainty, called the ‘Sure Thing’ principle, was purportedly falsified in a two-stage gamble paradigm by Tversky and Shafir (1992). This work revealed that participants would take a second-stage gamble for both possible outcomes of the initial-stage gamble, but would significantly depress this choice when no information was available on the outcome of the initial-stage gamble. Subsequent research has reported difficulty to replicate this Disjunction Effect in the two-stage gamble paradigm. We repeated this simulated two-stage gamble paradigm in an online study (N = 1119) but adapted the range of payoff amounts, and controlled the order of the blocks of two-stage gambles with, respectively without, information on the outcome of the first-stage gamble. The main empirical contributions of this study are that more risk averse participants produced (i) a reliable order effect in relation to the Disjunction Effect and the violation of the Law of Total Probability, and (ii) a novel inflation effect on gambling in the Unknown outcome condition analogous but opposite to the Disjunction Effect when Unknown outcome conditioned two-stage gambles precede the Known outcome conditioned ones. By contrast, we found that less risk averse participants produced neither of these effects. We discuss the underlying choice processes and compare the effectiveness of a logistic model, a Markov model and a quantum-like model. Our main theoretical findings are (i) a standard utility model and a Markov model using heuristic linear utility, contextual influence and carry-over effect cannot accommodate the present empirical results, and (ii) a model based on quantum dynamics, matched in form to the Markov model, can successfully describe all major aspects of our data.

Antenatal maternal anxiety modulates the BOLD response in 20-year-old men during endogenous cognitive control.

Evidence is building for an association between the level of anxiety experienced by a mother during pregnancy and offspring cognition and structural and functional brain correlates. The current study uses fMRI to examine the association between prenatal exposure to maternal anxiety and brain activity associated with endogenous versus exogenous cognitive control in 20-year-old males. Endogenous cognitive control refers to the ability to generate control over decisions, strategies, conflicting information and so on, from within oneself without external signals, while exogenous control is triggered by external signals. In line with previous results of this long-term follow-up study we found that 20-year-olds of mothers reporting high levels of anxiety during weeks 12-22 of pregnancy exhibited a different pattern of decision making in a Gambling paradigm requiring endogenous cognitive control, compared to adults of mothers reporting low to average levels of anxiety. Moreover, the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response in a number of prefrontal cortical areas was modulated by the level of antenatal maternal anxiety. In particular, a number of right lateralized clusters including inferior frontal junction, that were modulated in the adults of mothers reporting low to average levels of anxiety during pregnancy by a task manipulation of cognitive control, were not modulated by this manipulation in the adults of mothers reporting high levels of anxiety during pregnancy. These differences in brain functional correlates provide a neurobiological underpinning for the hypothesis of an association between exposure to maternal anxiety in the prenatal life period and a deficit in endogenous cognitive control in early adulthood.

Event-Related Potentials Are Associated With Unexpected Gain and Loss: Using a Gambling Paradigm.

Previous neuroimaging studies have described altered activity in brain areas associated with reward processing following reward or punishment. This study examines the extent to which feedback-based experience of gain and loss is associated with electrophysiological correlates. Twenty-nine healthy participants used a gambling task that focused on actual nonpredictable gains and losses. During the task, an electroencephalography recording was performed in order to assess reward processing. Event-related potentials were analyzed when participants were receiving gain/loss feedback. Event-related potentials revealed higher feedback-related negativity for both overall gain and loss compared with a neutral condition in fronto-centro-parietal electrodes. P3 potentials were significantly increased for high gains/losses compared to neutral and small gains/losses. These results indicate that the paradigm is suitable to evoke specific patterns of reward-related electrophysiological responses. The wavelet analysis showed that electroencephalography frequency variations depended on the amount of gains/losses. This gambling paradigm is appropriate to measure aspects of feedback processing and could help analyze disease-specific alterations of the reward system in patients.

What lies beneath peer acceptance in adolescence? Exploring the role of Nucleus Accumbens responsivity to self-serving and vicarious rewards

Peer relationships play an important role in adolescent social development. Adolescence is also a sensitive period for reward-related processing where Nucleus Accumbens (NAcc) shows peak levels of activity. To investigate the role of reward-related neural processes in peer relationships, we scanned 31 adolescents (16 boys, 15 girls) from 12 to 17 years old and had their classmates rate their likability and dislikability. Using these ratings, we calculated levels of peer acceptance (i.e., likability minus dislikability scores). Participants played a social gambling paradigm in the scanner where we examined NAcc responses to winning for self and winning for best friends. We showed that acceptance by peers was related negatively to activation patterns in the NAcc when winning money for self. Peer acceptance was not related to NAcc activity during vicarious reward processing where participants won money for their best friend. These results point in the direction of an underlying neural mechanism indicating that peer interactions of well-liked adolescents are characterized by a lower focus on benefits for self.

Event-Related Potentials in Relation to Risk-Taking: A Systematic Review.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) have been used to investigate neural mechanisms underlying risk-related decisions over the last 16 years. We aimed to systematically evaluate associations between risk-taking and ERP components elicited during decisions and following feedback. A total of 79 articles identified from PsychINFO and PubMed databases met the inclusion criteria. Selected articles assessed early ERP components (feedback-related negativity/FRN, error-related negativity/ERN, and medial frontal negativity/MFN) and the mid-latency P3 component, all using gambling paradigms that involved selecting between choices of varying risk (e.g., Iowa Gambling Task, Balloon Analogue Risk Task, and two-choice gambling tasks). The P3 component was consistently enhanced to the selection of risky options and when positive feedback (as compared to negative feedback) was provided. Also consistently, the early negative components were found to be larger following feedback indicating monetary losses as compared to gains. In the majority of studies reviewed here, risk was conceptualized in the context of simple economical decisions in gambling tasks. As such, this narrow concept of risk might not capture the diversity of risky decisions made in other areas of everyday experience, for example, social, health, and recreational risk-related decisions. It therefore remains to be seen whether the risk-sensitivity of the ERP components reviewed here generalizes to other domains of life.

Executive function in high-functioning autism: Decision-making consistency as a characteristic gambling behaviour

Restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviours, interests, or activities are a critical diagnostic criterion for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous studies using gambling paradigms with ASD populations have identified that, unlike typically developed control participants, people with a diagnosis of ASD tend to maintain particular response patterns regardless of the magnitude of potential outcomes to uncertain gains or losses. Here we designed a gambling test that permitted calculation of the response consistency in gambling choices in situations that presented varying expected outcomes in terms of gains or losses. The task was administered to 33 adults with a diagnosis of ASDs and compared to a group of 47 typically-developed (TD) control participants who were matched for age and IQ. When presented with choices where participants could either make a risky gamble or a safe choice in terms of gains or losses (e.g., 20% chance of winning £5 vs. 100% chance of winning £1), the ASD participants did not differ from the TDs in their overall risk-taking behaviour. However, they were more consistent in their individual choices from trial to trial. Furthermore, the proportion of participants who either implemented an invariate response strategy (e.g., either always choosing the most risky or most “safe” option) was significantly higher in the ASD group compared with the controls. Additionally, while the ASD group were slower to make their responses in the win frame and the first half of the lose frame, by the end of the task their decision times were the same as the TD controls. These findings suggest that the ASD tendency towards repetitive behaviour may demonstrate itself even in high-level decision-making tasks, which needs to be understood if we are to be sure what such tasks are measuring.

Blunted reward processing in remitted melancholic depression.

Blunted reward response appears to be a trait-like marker of vulnerability for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). As such, it should be present in remitted individuals; however, depression is a heterogeneous syndrome. Reward-related impairments may be more pronounced in individuals with melancholic depression. The present study examined neural responses to rewards in remitted melancholic depression (rMD; N = 29), remitted non-melancholic depression (rNMD; N = 56), and healthy controls (HC; N = 81). Event-related potentials to monetary gain and loss were recorded during a simple gambling paradigm. rMD was characterized by a blunted response to rewards relative to both the HC and the rNMD groups, who did not differ from one another. Moreover, the rMD and rNMD groups did not differ in course or severity of their past illnesses, or current depressive symptoms or functioning. Results suggest that blunted response to rewards may be a viable vulnerability marker for melancholic depression.

Blunted neural response to rewards as a vulnerability factor for depression: Results from a family study.

Depressive disorders are associated with significant economic and public health burdens as well as increased morbidity. Yet, perhaps due to the heterogeneous nature of the disease, prevention and intervention efforts are only moderately efficacious. A better understanding of core mechanisms of depressive disorders might aid in the development of more targeted intervention, and perhaps help identify individuals at risk. One mechanism that may be particularly important to depressive phenotypes is reward insensitivity. Examination of neurobiological correlates of reward-processing, which should relate more directly to the neuropathology of depression, may be helpful in identifying liability for the disorder. To that end, we used a family study design to examine whether a neural response to rewards is a familial risk factor for depression in a sample of probands with a wide range of internalizing psychopathology, as well as their biological siblings. Event-related potentials were recorded during a simple forced-choice gambling paradigm, in which participants could either win or lose small amounts of money. Lower levels of positive affect in probands predicted a reduced neural response to rewards in siblings, even over and above the sibling's own level of positive and negative affect. Additionally, the neural response to rewards was familial (i.e., correlated among siblings). Combined, these analyses suggest that a blunted neural response to rewards may be useful in identifying individuals vulnerable to depressive illnesses.

Affective cognition: Exploring lay theories of emotion

Humans skillfully reason about others’ emotions, a phenomenon we term affective cognition. Despite its importance, few formal, quantitative theories have described the mechanisms supporting this phenomenon. We propose that affective cognition involves applying domain-general reasoning processes to domain-specific content knowledge. Observers’ knowledge about emotions is represented in rich and coherent lay theories, which comprise consistent relationships between situations, emotions, and behaviors. Observers utilize this knowledge in deciphering social agents’ behavior and signals (e.g., facial expressions), in a manner similar to rational inference in other domains. We construct a computational model of a lay theory of emotion, drawing on tools from Bayesian statistics, and test this model across four experiments in which observers drew inferences about others’ emotions in a simple gambling paradigm. This work makes two main contributions. First, the model accurately captures observers’ flexible but consistent reasoning about the ways that events and others’ emotional responses to those events relate to each other. Second, our work models the problem of emotional cue integration—reasoning about others’ emotion from multiple emotional cues—as rational inference via Bayes’ rule, and we show that this model tightly tracks human observers’ empirical judgments. Our results reveal a deep structural relationship between affective cognition and other forms of inference, and suggest wide-ranging applications to basic psychological theory and psychiatry.

Beta oscillations and reward processing: Coupling oscillatory activity and hemodynamic responses

Diverse cortical and subcortical regions are synergically engaged during reward processing. Previous studies using time–frequency decomposition of Electroencephalography (EEG) data have revealed an increase of mid-frontal beta oscillatory activity (BOA) after reward delivery, which could be a potential mechanism in the coordination of the different areas engaged during reward processing. In order to evaluate this hypothesis, twenty subjects performed a monetary gambling paradigm in two separate sessions (EEG and fMRI). Time–frequency oscillatory EEG data and fMRI activity were fused using Joint Independent Component Analysis (ICA). The present results showed that mid-frontal BOA elicited by monetary gains is associated with the engagement of a fronto–striatal–hippocampal network previously involved in reward-related memory enhancement, supporting the role of this activity during reward processing.

Current attitudes of parents and patients toward hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for sickle cell anemia.

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is the only available cure for sickle cell anemia (SCA). HSCT-associated risks are one of many barriers to its widespread use for SCA. The study objective was to assess parent and patient perceptions of HSCT in the era of more widespread knowledge about HSCT for SCA. We surveyed parents of children with SCA and adolescents with SCA using the standard reference gamble paradigm. Survey responses between Africans (A) and African Americans (AA) and between parents and adolescents were compared. Seventy-two percent (64/89) of the respondents were willing to accept ≥ 5% risk of mortality, while 57% said they would accept a risk of ≥ 10% of graft versus host disease (GVHD). Twenty-two percent were unwilling to accept any risk of mortality or GVHD. Risk averseness did not differ between A or AA respondents. Fifty-six percent of respondents were willing to accept infertility post-HSCT. These data suggest that the majority of parents and adolescents are willing to accept the current risks associated with matched sibling HSCT for SCA. However, there continue to be significant numbers of parents and adolescents who are unwilling to accept any risk of HSCT-associated mortality or GVHD.

A model-based analysis of impulsivity using a slot-machine gambling paradigm.

Impulsivity plays a key role in decision-making under uncertainty. It is a significant contributor to problem and pathological gambling (PG). Standard assessments of impulsivity by questionnaires, however, have various limitations, partly because impulsivity is a broad, multi-faceted concept. What remains unclear is which of these facets contribute to shaping gambling behavior. In the present study, we investigated impulsivity as expressed in a gambling setting by applying computational modeling to data from 47 healthy male volunteers who played a realistic, virtual slot-machine gambling task. Behaviorally, we found that impulsivity, as measured independently by the 11th revision of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), correlated significantly with an aggregate read-out of the following gambling responses: bet increases (BIs), machines switches (MS), casino switches (CS), and double-ups (DUs). Using model comparison, we compared a set of hierarchical Bayesian belief-updating models, i.e., the Hierarchical Gaussian Filter (HGF) and Rescorla–Wagner reinforcement learning (RL) models, with regard to how well they explained different aspects of the behavioral data. We then examined the construct validity of our winning models with multiple regression, relating subject-specific model parameter estimates to the individual BIS-11 total scores. In the most predictive model (a three-level HGF), the two free parameters encoded uncertainty-dependent mechanisms of belief updates and significantly explained BIS-11 variance across subjects. Furthermore, in this model, decision noise was a function of trial-wise uncertainty about winning probability. Collectively, our results provide a proof of concept that hierarchical Bayesian models can characterize the decision-making mechanisms linked to the impulsive traits of an individual. These novel indices of gambling mechanisms unmasked during actual play may be useful for online prevention measures for at-risk players and future assessments of PG.