Trevor Steward

A Serious Videogame as an Additional Therapy Tool for Training Emotional Regulation and Impulsivity Control in Severe Gambling Disorder.

Background: Gambling disorder (GD) is characterized by a significant lack of self-control and is associated with impulsivity-related personality traits. It is also linked to deficits in emotional regulation and frequently co-occurs with anxiety and depression symptoms. There is also evidence that emotional dysregulation may play a mediatory role between GD and psychopathological symptomatology. Few studies have reported the outcomes of psychological interventions that specifically address these underlying processes. Objectives: To assess the utility of the Playmancer platform, a serious video game, as an additional therapy tool in a CBT intervention for GD, and to estimate pre-post changes in measures of impulsivity, anger expression and psychopathological symptomatology. Method: The sample comprised a single group of 16 male treatment-seeking individuals with severe GD diagnosis. Therapy intervention consisted of 16 group weekly CBT sessions and, concurrently, 10 additional weekly sessions of a serious video game. Pre-post treatment scores on South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS), Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), I7 Impulsiveness Questionnaire (I7), State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory 2 (STAXI-2), Symptom Checklist-Revised (SCL-90-R), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-S-T), and Novelty Seeking from the Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised (TCI-R) were compared. Results: After the intervention, significant changes were observed in several measures of impulsivity, anger expression and other psychopathological symptoms. Dropout and relapse rates during treatment were similar to those described in the literature for CBT. Conclusion: Complementing CBT interventions for GD with a specific therapy approach like a serious video game might be helpful in addressing certain underlying factors which are usually difficult to change, including impulsivity and anger expression.

Psychological and Personality Predictors of Weight Loss and Comorbid Metabolic Changes After Bariatric Surgery

Bariatric surgery (BS) has proven to be the most effective treatment for weight loss and for improving comorbidities in severe obesity. A comprehensive psychological assessment prior to surgery is proposed to prepare patients for a successful post-surgical outcome. Therefore, the main aim of the present study was to assess psychological and personality predictors of BS outcome. The sample comprised 139 severely obese patients who underwent BS. Assessment measures included the Eating Disorders Inventory-2, the Symptom Checklist-Revised and the Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised. Our results show that favourable BS outcome, after 2 years follow up, was associated with younger age, less depression, moderate anxiety symptoms and high cooperativeness levels. Likewise, metabolic improvements were found to be linked to younger age and certain psychopathological factors. In conclusion, our findings suggest that age, baseline body mass index, psychopathological indexes and personality traits predict successful BS outcome.

Emotion regulation in mood and anxiety disorders: A meta-analysis of fMRI cognitive reappraisal studies

Emotion regulation by means of cognitive reappraisal has been widely studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). To date, several meta-analyses of studies using cognitive reappraisal tasks in healthy volunteers have been carried out, but no meta-analyses have yet been performed on the fMRI data of clinical populations with identified alterations in emotion regulation capacity. We provide a comprehensive meta-analysis of cognitive reappraisal fMRI studies in populations of patients with mood or anxiety disorders, yielding a pooled sample of 247 patients and 262 controls from thirteen independent studies. As a distinguishing feature of this meta-analysis, original statistical brain maps were obtained from six of these studies. Our primary results demonstrated that patients with mood and anxiety disorders recruited the regulatory fronto-parietal network involved in cognitive reappraisal to a lesser extent in comparison to healthy controls. Conversely, they presented increased activation in regions that may be associated with the emotional experience (i.e., insula, cerebellum, precentral and inferior occipital gyri) and in regions whose activation may be the consequence of compensatory mechanisms (i.e., supramarginal gyri and superior parietal lobule). Moreover, activations in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the left superior temporal gyrus were associated with reinterpretation emotion regulation strategies, whereas medial frontal and parietal activations were associated with the deployment of distancing strategies. The regions revealed by this meta-analysis conform to a pattern of dysfunctional brain activation during cognitive reappraisal common to mood and anxiety disorders. As such, this neural pattern may reflect a transdiagnostic feature of these disorders.

Emotion Regulation and Excess Weight: Impaired Affective Processing Characterized by Dysfunctional Insula Activation and Connectivity.

Emotion-regulation strategies are understood to influence food intake. This study examined the neurophysiological underpinnings of negative emotion processing and emotion regulation in individuals with excess weight compared to normal-weight controls. Fifteen participants with excess-weight (body mass index >25) and sixteen normal-weight controls (body mass index 18–25) performed an emotion-regulation task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants were exposed to 24 negative affective or neutral pictures that they were instructed to Observe (neutral pictures), Maintain (sustain the emotion elicited by negative pictures) or Regulate (down-regulate the emotion provoked by negative pictures through previously trained reappraisal techniques). When instructed to regulate negative emotions by means of cognitive reappraisal, participants with excess weight displayed persistently heightened activation in the right anterior insula. Decreased responsivity was also found in right anterior insula, the orbitofrontal cortex and cerebellum during negative emotion experience in participants with excess weight. Psycho-physiological interaction analyses showed that excess-weight participants had decreased negative functional coupling between the right anterior insula and the right dlPFC, and the bilateral dmPFC during cognitive reappraisal. Our findings support contentions that excess weight is linked to an abnormal pattern of neural activation and connectivity during the experience and regulation of negative emotions, with the insula playing a key role in these alterations. We posit that ineffective regulation of emotional states contributes to the acquisition and preservation of excess weight.

Compulsive Buying Behavior: Characteristics of Comorbidity with Gambling Disorder

Compulsive buying behavior (CBB) has begun to be recognized as a condition worthy of attention by clinicians and researchers. Studies on the commonalities between CBB and other behavioral addictions such as gambling disorder (GD) exist in the literature, but additional research is needed to assess the frequency and clinical relevance of the comorbidity of CBB and GD. The aim of the study was to estimate the point-prevalence of CBB+GD in a clinical setting. Data corresponded to n = 3221 treatment-seeking patients who met criteria for CBB or GD at a public hospital unit specialized in treating behavioral addictions. Three groups were compared: only-CBB (n = 127), only-GD (n = 3118) and comorbid CBB+GD (n = 24). Prevalence for the co-occurrence of CBB+GD was 0.75%. In the stratum of patients with GD, GD+CBB comorbidity obtained relatively low point prevalence (0.77%), while in the subsample of CBB patients the estimated prevalence of comorbid GD was relatively high (18.9%). CBB+GD comorbidity was characterized by lower prevalence of single patients, higher risk of other behavioral addictions (sex, gaming or internet), older age and age of onset. CBB+GD registered a higher proportion of women compared to only-GD (37.5 vs. 10.0%) but a higher proportion of men compared to only-CBB (62.5 vs. 24.4%). Compared to only-GD patients, the simultaneous presence of CBB+GD was associated with increased psychopathology and dysfunctional levels of harm avoidance. This study provides empirical evidence to better understand CBB, GD and their co-occurrence. Future research should help delineate the processes through which people acquire and develop this comorbidity.

Food Addiction in Bulimia Nervosa: Clinical Correlates and Association with Response to a Brief Psychoeducational Intervention.

Food addiction (FA) has been examined in different populations. Although high FA levels are associated with greater eating disorder severity, few studies have addressed how FA relates to treatment outcome. GOALS The study aims (1) to determine whether a brief intervention for bulimia nervosa (BN) reduces FA diagnosis or severity compared with baseline and (2) to determine if FA is predictive of treatment outcome. METHOD Sixty-six female BN patients participated in the study. The Yale Food Addiction Scale was administered at two time points: prior to and following a 6-week intervention. The number of weekly binging/purging episodes, dropout and abstinence from bulimic behaviour were used as primary outcome measures. RESULTS This brief intervention reduced FA severity and FA diagnosis in the 55 patients who completed treatment. FA severity was a short-term predictor of abstinence from binging/purging episodes after treatment (p = .018). CONCLUSIONS Food addiction appears to be prevalent in BN although FA severity can improve following a short-term intervention. Copyright

The role of affect-driven impulsivity in gambling cognitions: A convenience-sample study with a Spanish version of the Gambling-Related Cognitions Scale

Background and aims Abnormal cognitions are among the most salient domain-specific features of gambling disorder. The aims of this study were: (a) to examine and validate a Spanish version of the Gambling-Related Cognitions Scale (GRCS; Raylu & Oei, 2004) and (b) to examine associations between cognitive distortion levels, impulsivity, and gambling behavior. Methods This study first recruited a convenience sample of 500 adults who had gambled during the previous year. Participants were assessed using the Spanish version of GRCS (GRCS-S) questionnaire, the UPPS-P impulsivity questionnaire, measures of gambling behavior, and potentially relevant confounders. Robust confirmatory factor analysis methods on half the sample were used to select the best models from a hypothesis-driven set. The best solutions were validated on the other half, and the resulting factors were later correlated with impulsivity dimensions (in the whole n = 500 factor analysis sample) and clinically relevant gambling indices (in a separate convenience sample of 137 disordered and non-disordered gamblers; validity sample). Results This study supports the original five-factor model, suggests an alternative four-factor solution, and confirms the psychometric soundness of the GRCS-S. Importantly, cognitive distortions consistently correlated with affect- or motivation-driven aspects of impulsivity (urgency and sensation seeking), but not with cognitive impulsivity (lack of premeditation and lack of perseverance). Discussion and conclusions Our findings suggest that the GRCS-S is a valid and reliable instrument to identify gambling cognitions in Spanish samples. Our results expand upon previous research signaling specific associations between gambling-related distortions and affect-driven impulsivity in line with models of motivated reasoning.

Delay discounting and impulsivity traits in young and older gambling disorder patients

BACKGROUND Impulsivity is understood to be a multidimensional construct involving aspects such as impulsive choice and impulsive traits. Delay discounting, the tendency to place greater value in immediate rewards over larger, long-term rewards, has been associated with maladaptive choices in gambling disorder (GD). Delay discounting is known to evolve with age; though no study to date has evaluated the interactions between impulsivity, GD severity and age in treatment-seeking patients. OBJECTIVES We aimed to examine whether associations between delay discounting and impulsivity traits differed between younger and older-aged GD patients. Secondly, we sought to untangle the mediating role of impulsivity in determining gambling behavior in these two age groups. METHODS GD patients (N=335) were evaluated using the UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale and a delay discounting task. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to explore associations between impulsivity measures and gambling severity in young (18-30years) and old (31-70) GD patients. RESULTS No differences in delay discounting were found between young and old GD patients. Significant correlations between delay discounting and urgency levels (the tendency to act rashly under emotional states) were identified only in the young GD group. Path analyses also revealed both positive and negative urgency to be a mediator of GD severity levels in young GD patients. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Significant associations between impulsive choice and positive urgency are only present in young gamblers, suggesting that positive urgency influence choice behavior to a greater degree at younger ages. Implications for targeted interventions are discussed.

Compulsive Buying Behavior: Clinical Comparison with Other Behavioral Addictions

Compulsive buying behavior (CBB) has been recognized as a prevalent mental health disorder, yet its categorization into classification systems remains unsettled. The objective of this study was to assess the sociodemographic and clinic variables related to the CBB phenotype compared to other behavioral addictions. Three thousand three hundred and twenty four treatment-seeking patients were classified in five groups: CBB, sexual addiction, Internet gaming disorder, Internet addiction, and gambling disorder. CBB was characterized by a higher proportion of women, higher levels of psychopathology, and higher levels in the personality traits of novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependence, persistence, and cooperativeness compared to other behavioral addictions. Results outline the heterogeneity in the clinical profiles of patients diagnosed with different behavioral addiction subtypes and shed new light on the primary mechanisms of CBB.

Enduring Changes in Decision Making in Patients with Full Remission from Anorexia Nervosa

BACKGROUND Deficits in neuropsychological functioning have consistently been identified in patients with anorexia nervosa (AN). However, little is known on how decision making in AN patients evolves in response to treatment or whether impairments are reversible. METHOD AN patients (n = 42) completed the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) upon admission to a 3-month day-hospital treatment programme and at a 1-year follow-up. Patient IGT performance was compared to age-matched controls (n = 46). RESULTS AN patients displayed poorer performance on the IGT at admission compared to controls (p < .001). Patients with full remission (n = 31; 73.9%) at the 1-year follow-up improved IGT performance (p = 0.007), and scores were similar compared to controls (p = 0.557). AN patients with partial/no remission at follow-up (n = 11; 26.1%) did not improve IGT scores (p = 0.867). CONCLUSIONS These findings uphold that enduring remission from AN can reverse decision-making impairments, and they might be most likely explained by clinical state rather than a trait vulnerability. Copyright