Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Jun 8:100:109880.
doi: 10.1016/j.pnpbp.2020.109880. Epub 2020 Jan 28.

Hormonal responses in gambling versus alcohol abuse: A review of human studies

Yansong Li  1 , Nicolas Ramoz  2 , Edmund Derrington  3 , Jean-Claude Dreher  4
Affiliations
Review

Hormonal responses in gambling versus alcohol abuse: A review of human studies

Yansong Li et al. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. .

Abstract

The endocrine system plays an essential role in communication between various organs of the body to maintain homeostasis. Both substance use disorders (SUDs) and non-substance abuse disrupt this system and lead to hormonal dysregulations. Here, we focus on the comparison between the function of the endocrine system in gambling disorders and alcohol addiction to understand the commonalities and differences in their neurobiological and psychological underpinnings. We review human research to compare findings on gambling addiction and alcohol dependence pertaining to the dynamic interplay between testosterone and cortisol. Understanding and classifying similarities in hormonal responses between behavioural addiction and SUDs may facilitate development of treatments and therapeutic interventions across different types of addictive disorders, while describing differences may shed light on therapeutic interventions for specific disorders. Although research on gambling addiction is in its infancy, such evaluation may still have a positive effect for addiction research, thereby stimulating discovery of "crossover" pharmacotherapies with benefits for both SUDs and nonsubstance addictions.

Keywords: Alcohol; Cortisol; Gambling disorders; Testosterone.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest All authors have no conflicts of interest to report.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles