Scientists Using Rats To Find Treatment For Problem Gambling

The wise-guys in the old days used to refer to a "rat" as someone who gave up their friends, someone who would tell the police anything they want to know just to save themselves. In many cases, the "rat" gave up associates that were running illegal gambling operations.

Scientists at the University of British Columbia are also using rats when it comes to gambling, only theirs are of the actual rodent variety. Research has now been done on problem gambling, using rats as the models.

The Nature journal, Neuropsychopharmacology, published a study on Wednesday that was done with the use of lab rats. The rats were given decisions that mirror those that a gambler would have to make, and the scientists studied the results of the decisions the rats made.

The way the study was set up, the rats were placed in a box with four response holes. The object for the rats was to accumulate as many sugar pellet treats they could in a thirty second period. With each decision the rats had to make, the reward was either greater, or smaller, depending on the amount of risk to the rats.

"They're capable of solving quite complex paradigms, as we've shown here," said behavioral neuroscientist Catharine Winstanley, "the sort of thing that you might argue that 'I can't believe anything other than a human could solve.'"

After the initial experiments were done, the scientists then gave rats certain drugs to reduce levels of two brain chemicals linked to gambling behavior. The scientists were not shocked at the results.

"What we saw was a reduced ability of our animals to discriminate the best option," said Winstanley, "They became worse gamblers, if you like."

Winstanley and other scientists are hoping to use the results of these and other tests that are coming in the future to find a better way to treat problem gambling.

"This is very much a first step. We're really happy we can see gambling-like behavior in our rats and now we can use this task to really probe the neural and neurochemical basis for gambling disorders."

June 18, 2009
Posted By Larry Rutherford
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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