The anticipatory dopamine response in addiction: A common neurobiological underpinning of gambling disorder and substance use disorder?

The dopamine system is associated with reward processes in both gambling disorder and substance use disorder, and may constitute a common neurobiological underpinning in addiction. The present review examines differences and similarities of dopaminergic reward processes in gambling disorder and substance use disorder. First, it is suggested that baseline binding potentials of the dopamine system may not be a common pathway, since substance use disorder is associated with reduced binding potentials, whereas gambling disorder is not. Second, it is suggested that dopaminergic reward response may be not a common pathway, since substance use disorder is associated with a blunted dopamine response toward drugs, while conflicting findings of reward response has been reported in gambling disorder. Instead, it is suggested that the anticpatory dopamine response may constitute a common underpinning of gambling disorder and substance use disorder, which may be associated with increased dopamine activity in both types of disorder, and does not involve the intake of substances. The notion of the anticipatory dopamine response as a common underpinning of gambling disorder and substance use disorder is consistent with dopaminergic models of addictions such as the incentive-sensitization model, the ingrative neurodevelopmental model of vulnerability toward addiction and the reward prediction error model.