Functional abnormalities underlying pathological gambling in Parkinson disease

Abstract

Background: Pathological gambling (PG) may develop in patients with Parkinson disease (PD) during dopamine replacement therapy, but the underlying neural correlates are still unclear.

Objective: To investigate resting state brain perfusion in PD patients with active PG compared with matched PD controls and healthy controls.

Design: Case-control study.

Setting: Outpatient tertiary clinic.

Participants: Eleven right-handed PD patients with active PG according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition, Text Revision) criteria, 40 matched PD controls, and 29 age-matched healthy controls.

Intervention: All the participants underwent resting state brain perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography using technetium TC 99m ethylcysteinate dimer bicisate. All PD subjects were taking dopaminergic medication.

Main outcome measure: Statistical Parametric Mapping was used for data analysis (P<.005, false discovery rate corrected).

Results: PD patients with PG showed resting state overactivity in a right hemisphere network that included the orbitofrontal cortex, the hippocampus, the amygdala, the insula, and the ventral pallidum. No areas of perfusion reduction were detected.

Conclusions: We found that PD patients with PG have abnormal resting state dysfunction of the mesocorticolimbic network possibly associated with a drug-induced overstimulation of relatively preserved reward-related neuronal systems. These findings support the concept that PG is a "behavioral" addictive disorder.