Gambling Disorder, 1st ed. 2019

This book provides an overview of the state of the art in research on and treatment of gambling disorder. As a behavioral addiction, gambling disorder is of increasing relevance to the field of mental health. Research conducted in the last decade has yielded valuable new insights into the characteristics and etiology of gambling disorder, as well as effective treatment strategies. The different chapters of this book present detailed information on the general concept of addiction as applied to gambling, the clinical characteristics, epidemiology and comorbidities of gambling disorder, as well as typical cognitive distortions found in patients with gambling disorder. In addition, the book includes chapters discussing animal models and the genetic and neurobiological underpinnings of the disorder. Further, it is examining treatment options including pharmacological and psychological intervention methods, as well as innovative new treatment approaches. The book also discusses relevantsimilarities to and differences with substance-related disorders and other behavioral addictions. Lastly, it examines gambling behavior from a cultural perspective, considers possible prevention strategies and outlines future perspectives in the field.

What is an addiction?.- Gambling disorder as a clinical phenomenon.- Cognitive Distortions in gambling disorder.- Genetics of gambling disorder.- Neurobiology of gambling disorder.- Pharmacological interventions in gambling disorder.- Psychological interventions in gambling disorder.- Innovative approaches in therapy of gambling disorder.- Similarities and differences to other non-substance related disorders (“behavioral addictions”).- Differences to substance related disorders.- Cultural perspective on gambling disorder.- Prevention of gambling disorder.- Future perspectives.

Andreas Heinz is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany. He studied medicine, philosophy and anthropology at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Freie Universität Berlin and at Howard University, Washington DC. He worked with Markku Linnoila and Daniel Weinberger as a special volunteer at the Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, NIH. He recently was awarded with a Leibniz Chair of the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology Magdeburg for excellent research in neuroscience as well as a Karl-Jaspers guest professorship at the University of Oldenburg. His research focuses on learning mechanisms and their modulation by monoaminergic neurotransmission. This includes effects of dopaminergic neurotransmission and genotype on reward prediction and processing and of serotonergic neurotransmission on processing of aversive stimuli and negative mood states. He applies multimodal imaging techniquessuch as functional magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography and spectroscopy. In cooperation with the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, he uses computational approaches to model behavior and to assess multiple genotype effects on the multimodal imaging data. A second research focus is on social exclusion stress and transcultural psychiatry.

Nina Romanczuk-Seiferth is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and neuroscientist. Currently, she is a Professor of Neurobiology of the Mind and Neuropsychotherapy at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany, where she works as head psychologist at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. Her research group “Emotional Neuroscience” focuses on the neurobiological correlates of emotion and motivation in psychological disorders as well as its implications for psychotherapy. Within this scope, Nina Romanczuk-Seiferth works on gambling disorder and other behavioral addictions. Besid