Background: Lisdexamfetamine has not heretofore been reported to cause pathological gambling. Such a case is presented. Methods: A middle-aged woman, without past interest in gambling, gaming, or risk taking behavior, with childhood history of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder presented with difficulty focusing and concentrating. Lisdexamfetamine was started at 20 mg daily and gradually escalated due to lack of efficacy. At 70 mg daily, she began binging on sweets and gambling all day, every day at nearby riverboats, which she had never frequented previously. Upon reduction to 60 mg daily, the gambling resolved. Ritalin 20 mg every morning and 50 mg every afternoon was used without gambling reoccurrence. Results: Mental Status Examination: Alert, cooperative and oriented x 3 with good eye contact. Euthymic, without mania, thoughts logical and goal directed. Conclusions: Enhanced dopamine in the nucleus accumbens may induce hedonic activities including gambling, binging on sweets, or sexual activity (Moore et al. 2014). Lisdexamfetamine has been described to induce mania, and pathological gambling may have been an isolated manifestation of early mania. In those who have recently begun lisdexamfetamine, query should be made regarding change in gambling behavior and in those who are pathologically gambling, investigation should be entertained as to whether they are taking lisdexamfetamine.
Suboptimal choice by pigeons: An analog of human gambling behavior
