Pathological Gambling May Be Genetic
27, September 2005
Recent studies have shown that problem gamblers may have more than themselves to blame; they may have inherited the genetic package that increased the chances they would have a problem. An associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Marc Potenza, has lead the authorship of the study, and cautions that more research is required before treatment strategies can be implemented with the new information.
In addition the study showed that there is an identifiable, hereditary link between pathological gambling and major depression, a recognized psychiatric disorder. The future studies will include as their goals determining whether the pathological gambling comes before the major depression, or the other way around, as well as how the disorders interact over time, and how treatment of one disorder may help or hurt the treatment of the other.
The main “take away” from the study, according to Potenza, is that “The data suggest a significant correlation between pathological gambling and major depression that is attributable largely to genetic factors.”
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