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N.M. doctor tests pill that may help gambling addicts

Bad brain wiring. 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.

The pill has worked successfully treating alcoholics but has never been tried on compulsive gamblers before, she added.

"Gambling is definitely an addiction, it tends to have a genetic predisposition," Lapham said. "It also has very similar symptoms to many drug and alcohol addictions. Up until now, there haven't been any medications for gambling addictions. It's all been psycho-social therapies. This is an exciting time to be in the addiction field."

If a pill to stop gambling seems odd, consider this: A drug called Martex, used to treat Parkinson's disease, has actually created compulsive gambling problems in patients that never had them before, said Kandace Blanchard, executive director of the New Mexico branch of the National Council on Problem Gambling.

"It's strange, but when they take people off the drug, they stop gambling," she said. "If they get to the bottom of that, they'd really be getting to the bottom of a lot of addiction problems."

The symptom list for gambling addiction is similar to that of those for alcohol and drugs.

full article By Sue Vorenberg Tribune Reporter October 10, 2005

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