Issues & Insights

The American Psychiatric Association currently is in the process of updating the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to its fifth edition (DSM-V). The DSM is the handbook of mental disorders in the United States, used daily by health care providers, researchers, insurance companies and government agencies. The DSM-V Work Group that reviewed the diagnosis for pathological gambling has proposed several changes to the diagnostic definition of the disorder. Revisions in diagnostic codes are typically driven by evolving research that transforms our understanding of a disorder, and so this month’s Issues & Insights summarizes several studies that question the current definition of pathological gambling and, in some cases, might inform the final recommendations for the DSM-V.

March Madness refers not just to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s basketball tournament, but also to the uptick in gambling activity that ranges from office pools to betting online. An increased awareness during this time of year about gambling on college sports usually leads to questions about gambling by college students. Consequently, we have devoted the March edition of Issues & Insights to new research on college gambling.

The Institute for Research on Gambling Disorders this week announced significant changes in its competitive research grants program. These modifications, the product of a recent review of the grants program by the Institute’s Scientific Advisory Board, will offer twice as many grants, provide new opportunities for researchers beginning to explore gambling disorders and enhance the quality of research funded by the Institute—while increasing the number of investigators working in the field. (Details about our new grant categories and funding priorities can be found in the Project Grants section.)

To understand why tribal governments are reluctant to allow “outside” researchers to study their communities, consider the following story. In 2004, the Havasupai Tribe filed a lawsuit against Arizona State University (ASU) charging that ASU researchers had misused blood samples taken from tribal members who had been told that the sample material would be used for a study on the genetics of diabetes. The Havasupai later learned that the samples were also used for research on schizophrenia, inbreeding and migration patterns, without the tribe’s consent.

The theme of this year’s NCRG Conference on Gambling and Addiction may seem a bit simplistic. After all, isn’t winning money the currency of gambling addiction? But as the conference program shows, there are a variety of layers to this topic. First and foremost, there is new research on how people make decisions about money.  Made possible by advances in brain imaging technology, investigations of the neurobiology of decision-making will shed light on why some people make poor decisions by gambling beyond their means and continue to do so in spite of adverse consequences. But such research also has implications for all of us, especially during this economic downturn that has highlighted unwise decisions about finance.

As the body of research on gambling disorders continues to grow, scientific evidence is beginning to show that some vulnerable and special needs populations appear to be at a higher risk for developing gambling disorders than the general population. The National Center for Responsible Gaming (NCRG) and the Institute for Research on Gambling Disorders have made research on these groups a priority, supporting investigations of gambling problems among young people, women, homeless individuals and African-American adolescents.

When the New Investigator category of our project grants program debuted in 2004, we sought to attract talented young researchers to the field of gambling studies. This year, with the award of a grant to Dr. Serena King of Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., the National Center for Responsible Gaming and the Institute for Research on Gambling Disorders have supported a total of five new investigators with more than $250,000 in project grants.

Welcome to the Institute for Research on Gambling Disorders and the first edition of Issues & Insights. Here we’ll keep you updated on the latest issues and research on gambling disorders and related topics, including feature posts from some of the leading researchers in this field. For this inaugural edition, we’re reflecting on a new chapter for both the Institute and the field of research on gambling disorders.

At first glance, research on lab rats who “gamble” might seem either fodder for jokes or irrelevant to the search for solutions for gambling disorders; however, recently published findings of an NCRG-funded investigation at the University of British Columbia demonstrates that such research represents, as Dr. Marc Potenza of Yale University observed, a “significant step forward” that could eventually lead to new treatments for pathological gambling.