Problem gambling pill?

A New Mexico doctor is stating trials on a pill that may “cure” problem gambling–by blocking the “pleasure pathways” of the brain. Why does think make me think of A Clockwork Orange?

From the Albuquerque Tribune:

When something gets skewed in the brain’s pleasure pathways, an ordinary person can turn into a compulsive drinker, drug-user or gambler.

The patterns in all three appear to be the same, and the cure might be as simple as a pill and some therapy, said Sandra Lapham, a doctor at the Behavioral Health Research Center of the Southwest in Albuquerque.

“The brain works in such a way that we get in these ruts in our neuro-chemical pathways, and that makes us fall into patterns of behavior,” Lapham said. “For some people, if you take away that underlying craving, change that pathway, then you take away the enjoyment of that behavior and can stop it.”

Lapham this month is starting a clinical trial to treat compulsive gambling with a pill that blocks the brain’s pleasure pathways and keeps the person from enjoying a gambling high. The name of the pill is confidential as part of the study, she said.

Treatment with the pill is typically given to addicts for three months. Lapham wants to try it for six months, because she thinks it will be more successful.

“A lot of people are able to stop after that amount of time and change their behavior and the pathways behind it,” Lapham said.

The medication also blocks pleasure from normal activities, however, so the goal is to take patients off it as quickly as possible.

“If you’re using a substance or gambling for an artificial high, the pleasure receptor sites in your brain down-regulate,” Lapham said. “They become less sensitive to naturally occurring highs from things like exercise, eating and sex. So you’re down-regulating a person who already is down-regulated.”

Because addicts already have problems experiencing pleasure naturally, sometimes they are treated with anti-depressants after the initial treatment is over, she added.

Bright Idea: N.M. doctor tests pill that may help gambling addicts

As bad as problem gambling is, is being unable to feel any pleasure at all any worse? This is a question bigger than gambling of course, and probably doesn’t have any easy answer.