In the clinical setting, Huntington's disease
is associated with problems in judgment and decision making,
however, the extent of these problems and their association
with clinical characteristics have not been assessed. Recently,
a laboratory-based simulated gambling task has been used
to quantify similar decision-making deficits in ventromedial
frontal lobe damaged participants. We hypothesized that
participants with Huntington's disease (HD) would
show deficits on this gambling task. For this study, 14
HD participants were asked to make 100 selections from
four decks of cards with varied payoffs in order to maximize
winnings of play money. They were compared to 22 participants
with Parkinson's disease (PD) and 33 healthy controls.
After an initial period in which participants had to learn
contingencies of the decks, the HD group made fewer advantageous
selections than the PD and control groups. In HD, the number
of advantageous selections in the gambling task was correlated
with measures of memory and conceptualization but not disinhibition.
Thus, people with HD may have had difficulties learning
or remembering win/loss contingencies of the decks, or
they may have failed to consistently take these into account
in their card selections. These findings are consistent
with current models of frontal-subcortical brain circuits
and behavior. (JINS, 2001, 7, 92–101.)
Impairment on a Simulated Gambling Task in Long-Term Abstinent Alcoholics
