Research Update

The Responsible Gaming Association of New Mexico, a collaboration of many of the state’s Native American owned casinos, has awarded NCRG a grant of $300,000 in support of research on the subpopulations of New Mexico, including racial or ethnic subgroups such as Native Americans or Hispanics/Latinos, age-based subgroups such as older adults or youth, and/or highly targeted subgroups such as Native American young adults living in Albuquerque.

Peter Nathan, University of Iowa Foundation Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Public Health Emeritus, died on May 8, 2016, at the age of 81. The world knew Dr. Nathan as an internationally recognized scientist and researcher, focused on alcohol use disorder and other areas of addiction as well as a major figure at the University of Iowa where he served as provost and acting president. However, Dr. Nathan also made an outstanding contribution to the field of gambling disorder studies through his work with the NCRG’s scientific advisory board where he spearheaded efforts to raise the standards for conducting research on disordered gambling and recruited other distinguished scientists to the work of the NCRG. For more information and to post an online memory, visit http://www.lensingfuneral.com/obituaries/obituary-listings?obId=898044#/obituaryInfo

This year the National Center for Responsible Gaming (NCRG) is celebrating 20 years of funding high quality, peer-reviewed scientific research on gambling disorder. Since 1996 the NCRG has awarded more than $18 million in support of investigations of gambling disorder and youth and college gambling through its competitive grants program. The NCRG is proud to continue this mission by offering Travel Grants, Seed Grants and Centers of Excellence in Gambling Research Grants in 2016.

The fourth annual Collaborative Perspectives on Addiction will be held March 18-19, 2016, in San Diego. This year’s theme is “Reducing Health Disparities through Addiction Science and Practice.” The deadline for poster proposals to be considered for travel awards is Dec. 4, 2015. If your topic is focused on disordered gambling, consider applying to the NCRG for a Travel Grant. NCRG will provide up to $1,500 in support of registration fees and travel expenses.

Collaborative Perspectives on Addiction is sponsored by the Society of Addiction Psychology (Division 50 of the American Psychological Association), which promotes advances in research, professional training, and clinical practice within the broad range of addictive behaviors.

Teenagers are known for making risky decisions. But does research support this assumption? A new study from Duke University, funded in part by the NCRG, found that adolescents aged 10 to 16 can be more analytical in their economic choices than many slightly older adults. Published in the October-December issue of the journal, Cognitive Development, the study suggests that  not only should we give teenagers more credit for rationality but also that parents should help children hone their cost-benefit analysis skills in making real-life decisions (Youngbin, Payne, Cohen, & Huettel, 2015). One of the authors, Scott Huettel, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke, explained that while not as irrational as usually characterized, adolescents don’t use the simple rules of decision-making as effectively as adults. For example, young adults are more sensitive to positive outcomes than adults. This accounts for the many risky behaviors observed in this age group, including gambling.

Did you know that only about 15 percent of disordered gamblers in the US seek treatment or attend self-help groups (Slutske, 2006)? However, nearly half of lifetime disordered gamblers received treatment for some other mental or substance problem (Kessler et al., 2008). According to the National Comorbidity Survey Replication, increased screening for emerging gambling problems in clients already in treatment might be an opportunity to prevent full-blown gambling disorders (Kessler et al., 2008).

Who will be the next generation of gambling researchers? The NCRG is not leaving this question to chance. Since 2004, the NCRG has funded grants specifically designed to offer new investigators the opportunity to focus on a research project under the mentorship of senior scientists. The NCRG is proud of the many accomplishments of these emerging scientists.

We're excited that the first recipient of an NCRG new investigator grant, Silvia Martins, M.D., Ph.D., has been awarded a $656,465 grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to continue her work on “Predictors of High-Risk Behaviors Among Youth.” Dr. Martins is now associate professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Who will be the next generation of gambling researchers? The NCRG is not leaving this question to chance. Since 2004, the NCRG has funded grants specifically designed to offer new investigators the opportunity to focus on a research project under the mentorship of senior scientists. The NCRG is proud of the many accomplishments of these emerging scientists.

Recently, we were heartened to learn that the first recipient of an NCRG new investigator grant, Silvia Martins, M.D., Ph.D., has been awarded a $656,465 grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to continue her work on “Predictors of High-Risk Behaviors Among Youth.” Dr. Martins is now associate professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Many people may not know that 95 percent of people with gambling disorder also have another mental health disorder as well (Kessler et al., 2008). This stunning reality should influence every aspect of how researchers, clinicians and even the media approach the topic of understanding, diagnosing and treating gambling disorders. This co-occurrence of multiple disorders in an individual (called “comorbidity”) presents many unique challenges for the identification and treatment of gambling disorder. Research that can provide insights into comorbid conditions can be beneficial for clinicians and researchers alike.

One recent study on this topic came from Iman Parhami, M.D., M.P.H., a psychiatry resident at the Delaware Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health, who conducted a survey to examine many health-related issues associated with gambling behaviors and other demographic data. Longtime readers may remember that Dr. Parhami won the outstanding poster award at the NCRG conference in 2011.

One of the goals of the NCRG research program is to provide initial funding for innovative research studies so that researchers can leverage their findings for larger grants to continue and expand their studies. Researchers from the University of British Columbia have made great strides by continuing the line of study from their NCRG-funded research that began almost seven years ago.

In 2006, the NCRG awarded a new investigator grant to Catherine Winstanley, Ph.D., from the University of British Columbia, to test a new model of gambling behavior in rats, based on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT).