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Previous studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have identified differential brain activity in healthy subjects performing gambling tasks and in pathological gambling (PG) subjects when exposed to motivational and emotional predecessors for gambling as well as during gambling or response inhibition tasks. The goal of the present study was to determine if PG subjects exhibit differential brain activity when exposed to visual gambling cues.

Ten male DSM-IV-TR PG subjects and 10 matched healthy control subjects underwent fMRI during visual presentations of gambling-related video alternating with video of nature scenes.

Pathological gambling subjects and control subjects exhibited overlap in areas of brain activity in response to the visual gambling cues; however, compared with control subjects, PG subjects exhibited significantly greater activity in the …