Olfaction in people with a pathological gambling disorder

Introduction: Pathological gambling is a severe behavioural disorder where patients tend to show a number of similarities with more traditional drug addictions; i.e. developing a tolerance and thus seeking to gamble higher amounts and displaying a craving for the behaviour (Potenza, 2008, Rennert et al 2014). In addition, dopaminergic treatment of Parkinson’s disease (PD) have been reported to elicit pathologic gambling behaviour in these types of patients (e.g. Callesen et al 2014). Moreover, dopamine is a key transmitter involved in reward mechanisms (Di Chiara & Bassareo, 2007) as well as in olfaction (Huisman et al 2004). One of the early markers of PD, a neurodegenerative disease targeting the dopamine system, is hyposmia (Huisman et al 2004). Hypothesis: The dopaminergic system is more sensitive in Pathological gamblers (PG) than neurotypical controls, which might influence the olfactory capacity.Here we investigate olfaction in a group of PGs compared to controls using the Sniffin'Sticks test for odour identification, discrimination, and threshold (Hummel et al 1997). Results: Initial analysis does not reveal a difference in olfaction between pathological gamblers and controls in the overall TDI score. However, we do find a significant effect in identification where PGs seemingly outperform the controls (p < 0.001).