HI guys and gals...
I want to share with you a brief blurb that I saw in the June 4, 2001 Newsweek. I found it to be quite interesting. Now before some of you start thinking that in my posting that I am being judgemental about this activity... I'm not. I have been doing this stuff since August or September of last year day-in-day-out. So I am not wanting any of you to think that this is being posted because I think sports wagering is "wrong". I'm just sharing the information. And .. I don't think I'm any "better" or "worse" than any of you. Well... I know some of you are BETTER but I'm not laying some moral trip on you. I'm just an average guy...just like you! Yes... I too am a PRICK!
Lab Notes
Your Brain on Poker
You know the "HIGH" that gamblers talk about when they fill an inside straight? It turns out to be more than a metaphor. In a new brain-imaging study, researchers led by Dr. Hans Breiter of Massachusetts General Hospital examined which regions of the brain became active when volunteers played a game of chance. After getting $50, each of 12 men flicked a spinner that landed on one of three amounts of money, which they won or lost. Meanwhile, the scientists tracked the men's brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Regions that responded to gambling wins overlapped with those that respond to cocaine. Money, in other words, excites much the same regions as a drug, they report in the journal Neuron. "Gambling produces a similar pattern of activity to cocaine in the cocaine addict," Breiter says. "The same set of brain regions process very different categories of reward." Gambling addiction, then, may have the same neural basis as drug addiction. Will compulsive shopping be next?
[This message has been edited by AzRusty (edited 06-08-2001).]
I want to share with you a brief blurb that I saw in the June 4, 2001 Newsweek. I found it to be quite interesting. Now before some of you start thinking that in my posting that I am being judgemental about this activity... I'm not. I have been doing this stuff since August or September of last year day-in-day-out. So I am not wanting any of you to think that this is being posted because I think sports wagering is "wrong". I'm just sharing the information. And .. I don't think I'm any "better" or "worse" than any of you. Well... I know some of you are BETTER but I'm not laying some moral trip on you. I'm just an average guy...just like you! Yes... I too am a PRICK!
Lab Notes
Your Brain on Poker
You know the "HIGH" that gamblers talk about when they fill an inside straight? It turns out to be more than a metaphor. In a new brain-imaging study, researchers led by Dr. Hans Breiter of Massachusetts General Hospital examined which regions of the brain became active when volunteers played a game of chance. After getting $50, each of 12 men flicked a spinner that landed on one of three amounts of money, which they won or lost. Meanwhile, the scientists tracked the men's brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Regions that responded to gambling wins overlapped with those that respond to cocaine. Money, in other words, excites much the same regions as a drug, they report in the journal Neuron. "Gambling produces a similar pattern of activity to cocaine in the cocaine addict," Breiter says. "The same set of brain regions process very different categories of reward." Gambling addiction, then, may have the same neural basis as drug addiction. Will compulsive shopping be next?
[This message has been edited by AzRusty (edited 06-08-2001).]
