The Iowa Gambling Task: A Review of the Historical Evolution, Scientific Basis, and Use in Functional Neuroimaging
Date
2019Journal
SAGE OpenPublisher
SAGE Publications Inc.Type
Article
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The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) provides a framework to evaluate an individual decision-making process through a simulated card game where the risks and rewards vary by the decks chosen. Participants are expected to understand the logic behind the allocation of gains and losses over the course of the test and adapt their pattern of choices accordingly. This review explores the scientific work on studying problem gambling via the IGT while employing neuroimaging techniques. We first concentrate on the historical evolution of the IGT as a mechanism for studying gamblers' behavioral patterns. Our research will also discuss the prefrontal cortex as this region of the brain is most affected by changes in behavioral patterns. In this review, we describe a number of features that may be useful in investigating decision-making patterns that lead to gambling addiction. We discuss the evidence base to date including experiments involving gambling behavior in different groups of participants (e.g., males and females, adults and minors, patients and controls) and alterations to experiment conditions that provide more thorough understanding of thought patterns in potential gamblers. We conclude that psychological testing combined with functional imaging provide powerful tools to further examine the relationships between functional impairment of the brain and a person's ability to objectively anticipate the end results of their decisions. Copyright The Author(s) 2019.Identifier to cite or link to this item
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85068357225&doi=10.1177%2f2158244019856911&partnerID=40&md5=6a2d069858a36555d785407ca29d1d25; http://hdl.handle.net/10713/10789ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1177/2158244019856911