Author(s)

Yingzhen Jia^1*, Kimberly Rose Clark²

¹College of Arts and Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
²Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA.

One in five Americans experience symptoms associated with at least one mental health disorder every year. These include behavioral addictions, which have long been overlooked despite their similar neural bases with substance addictions. Gambling addiction, a type of behavioral addiction, deserves particular attention given the significant negative effects, this addiction has on financial and interpersonal health. The purpose of this paper is to review the available literature concerning the behavioral and neural processes involved in gambling addiction, including: the anticipation of reward, the role of dopamine, and the neural substrates of the decision-making processes involved in gambling addiction. Market research has also identified solutions that integrate applied neuroscience and self-tracking systems to monitor and manage mental health issues associated with gambling addiction. The authors then propose a gambling treatment-focused mobile app solution that addresses outstanding issues with a special design aimed at reversing plasticity in order to relieve the effects of gambling addiction.

Applied Neuroscience, Gambling, Addiction, Mental Health Management

Jia, Y. and Rose Clark, K. (2024) The Role of Impulsivity and Addiction in Gambling Behaviors: How Applied Neuroscience Research Can Help in the Monitoring and Management of Mental Health Issues. Open Journal of Medical Psychology, 13, 11-24. doi: 10.4236/ojmp.2024.131002.