New Drug Curbs Compulsive Gambling — Micromotives

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Micromotives is a blog about behavioral decision making--how do people make decisions in the real world, not just in theory? What types of cognitive and psychological biases influence our thinking, both for better and worse? How do people really decide what products to buy, what stocks to invest in, or where to go for dinner? Insight into these processes can help us become savvier marketers, wiser investors, and better strategic thinkers. More fundamentally, a deeper understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of human reasoning will help us design processes and institutions which have the power to improve all of our lives.

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New Drug Curbs Compulsive Gambling

Experimental drug nalmafene has shown promise in helping compulsive gamblers overcome their addiction, according to a recent study at the University of Minnesota. About two-thirds of those treated showed “significant” improvement over the four month trial, as opposed to only one-third of those in a control group who received a placebo.

The research represents the latest effort to control the biology of misbehavior at a time when celebrity poker, online gambling, lotteries and sports betting have helped to make obsessive wagering a national psychiatric disorder.

“The study is part of emerging evidence that gambling, once thought to be a problem in moral integrity, is instead a problem in brain biology and can be successfully treated,” said Dr. Robert Freedman, editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry, which published the study today in its February issue.

Read more: Drug Shows Promise in Curbing Compulsive Gambling, Study Shows

February 8th, 2006

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