Pathological gamblers may just be less attentive, not necessarily more impulsive.

摘要

In their recent study entitled "Go/NoGo performance in pathological gamblers", Kertzman et al. (2008) assessed the association between impaired response inhibition and pathological gambling (PG) employing a Continuous Performance Test (CPT) and Go/NoGo tasks. The authors addressed a very interesting topic and attempted to examine the association between impaired response inhibition and PG to delineate the neurocognitive basis for impaired response inhibition. The authors compared the performance on the CPT and the Go/NoGo task on a cohort of pathological gamblers versus healthy controls. Laboratory-based measures including the Go/NoGo and the CPT may be useful for investigating complex constructs such as impulsivity and inattention because they are not as susceptible to informant biases, and may provide a less tainted assessment of inhibition and/or inattention than other approaches (Fishbein, 2000). Laboratory procedures also provide precision and control over manipulating the variables related to the desired behavior; thus, the authors' endeavor is much appreciated.