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This thesis is studying the current global as well as Czech gambling industry with the focus on internet gambling activities. The work begins with the description of various gambling activities. The focus is taken on the internet gambling activities with description of the specifics and the current European as well as US legal frame. Next part is dedicated to the psychology of gambling together with the pathological gambling addiction. In next part the thesis studies the current situation on the Czech market - history, main official legal providers as well as main grey market providers. Second part of the work is the case study of the launch of the internet lottery games by Fortuna Entertainment Group. This case study is based on a desk research of previous successful best practices in the internet gambling industry from all around the world.

Para valorar la posibilidad de determinar la prevalencia de los jugadores de azar mediante entrevistas por teléfono, se han realizado dos ensayos pilotos con muestras de la ciudad de Granada, uno utilizando entrevistas personales a domicilio y otro mediante encuesta telefónica. Se han encontrado diferencias significativas en la tasa de respuesta primaria, 54,17% para la encuesta presencial y 42,74% para la encuesta telefónica. Con respecto a las variables demográficas, no se encuentran diferencias significativas, para la edad. Ambas muestras pueden considerarse homogéneas con respecto al sexo, estado civil, situación laboral, y con quien se convive. Sin embargo, hay diferencias significativas, en el nivel de estudios y en la distribución de los ingresos mensuales, que son mayores en los encuestados telefónicamente. Las puntuaciones en el cuestionario de diagnóstico del juego patológico no difieren significativamente.

Compulsive sexual behaviour (CSB) is relatively common and has been associated with significant distress and psychosocial impairments. CSB has been conceptualized as either an impulse control disorder or a non-substance ‘behavioural’ addiction. Substance use disorders are commonly associated with attentional biases to drug cues which are believed to reflect processes of incentive salience. Here we assess male CSB subjects compared to age-matched male healthy controls using a dot probe task to assess attentional bias to sexually explicit cues. We show that compared to healthy volunteers, CSB subjects have enhanced attentional bias to explicit cues but not neutral cues particularly for early stimuli latency. Our findings suggest enhanced attentional bias to explicit cues possibly related to an early orienting attentional response. This finding dovetails with our recent observation that sexually explicit videos were associated with greater activity in a neural network similar to that observed in drug-cue-reactivity studies. Greater desire or wanting rather than liking was further associated with activity in this neural network. These studies together provide support for an incentive motivation theory of addiction underlying the aberrant response towards sexual cues in CSB. ispartof: PLoS One vol:9 issue:8 pages:1-7 status: published

Purposes This study examined the prevalence of addictive Internet use and analyzed the role of parental relationship in affecting this behavior among a random sample of adolescents in Wuhan, China. Methods Students (n = 1,101) were randomly selected from four schools, including 638 boys and 463 girls with a mean age of 13.8 (standard deviation = 1.2) years. Addictive Internet use, parental relationship, hyperactivity-impulsivity were measured by validated instruments. Prevalence rate, ANOVA and multiple linear regression method were used to analyze the level of Internet addiction and its association with parental relationship, hyperactivity-impulsivity, as well as the interaction of parental relationship with chronological age and hyperactivity-impulsivity. Results The prevalence rate of Internet addiction was 13.5% (16.5% for boys and 9.5% for girls, p

Drug addiction is an association of compulsive drug use with long-term associative learning/memory. Multiple forms of learning/memory are primarily subserved by activity- or experience-dependent synaptic long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD). Recent studies suggest LTP expression in locally activated glutamate synapses onto dopamine neurons (local Glu-DA synapses) of the midbrain ventral tegmental area (VTA) following a single or chronic exposure to many drugs of abuse, whereas a single exposure to cannabinoid did not significantly affect synaptic plasticity at these synapses. It is unknown whether chronic exposure of cannabis (marijuana or cannabinoids), the most commonly used illicit drug worldwide, induce LTP or LTD at these synapses. More importantly, whether such alterations in VTA synaptic plasticity causatively contribute to drug addictive behavior has not previously been addressed. Here we show in rats that chronic cannabinoid exposure activates VTA cannabinoid CB1 receptors to induce transient neurotransmission depression at VTA local Glu-DA synapses through activation of NMDA receptors and subsequent endocytosis of AMPA receptor GluR2 subunits. A GluR2-derived peptide blocks cannabinoid-induced VTA synaptic depression and conditioned place preference, i.e., learning to associate drug exposure with environmental cues. These data not only provide the first evidence, to our knowledge, that NMDA receptor-dependent synaptic depression at VTA dopamine circuitry requires GluR2 endocytosis, but also suggest an essential contribution of such synaptic depression to cannabinoid-associated addictive learning, in addition to pointing to novel pharmacological strategies for the treatment of cannabis addiction.

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada no ISPA – Instituto Universitário para obtenção de grau de Mestre na especialidade de Psicologia Clínica. O presente estudo recai sobre a temática da terapia sistémica conjugal, incidente sobre duas herméticas, a adição ao jogo e o relacionamento sexual. Tendo por base um novo paradigma, qual seja, a família enquanto sistema e não o sujeito de forma isolada, torna-se essencial compreender ambas as problemáticas do ponto de vista do sujeito enquanto parte integrante de múltiplos subsistemas, nomeadamente a nível da comunicação, estrutura e dinâmica relacional. A pertinência do estudo, emerge assim da escassez de informações científicas sobre ambas as temáticas do ponto de vista sistémico, uma vez que até então estas tendem a ser estudadas, a nível pessoal e de género. O objectivo recai assim sobre duas frentes: num primeiro plano sobre a análise e caracterização de dois casais em processo terapêutico numa sociedade científica da região da grande Lisboa, assente em suporte teórico de referência, nomeadamente a Teoria da Comunicação, o Modelo Circumplexo dos Sistemas Conjugais e Familiares, a Teoria Enfoque Relacional-Simbólico e a Teoria dos Sistemas Familiares, genograma; e em última instância, o aprofundamento das respectivas temáticas com um estudo de caso comparativo entre a adição ao jogo e relacionamento sexual. Como método optou-se por um estudo de caso comparativo, com dois casais participantes que realizaram terapia sistémica conjugal na referente sociedade científica e cujas problemáticas se afiguraram distintas. Recorreu-se assim como instrumentos a uma grelha de caracterização do funcionamento familiar, à elaboração de genogramas em três momentos avaliativos do processo terapêutico, para cada casal e ainda de forma complementar, ao Systemic Clinical Outcome Routine Evaluation (SCORE-15). Enquanto resultados, prosperados ao longo de três momentos de avaliação, obtiveram-se evoluções significativas em diversas áreas da relação conjugal, em ambos os casais, nomeadamente em novos padrões comunicacionais e na definição de limites. Mais se apurou, a nível comparativo, a presença de algumas semelhanças no padrão relacional operativo dos dois casais apesar das antagónicas problemáticas. The present study falls on systemic conjugal therapy which focuses on two great themes: gambling addiction and sexual relationship. Based on a new paradigm – family as a system and not the subject in an isolated way – it becomes essential to understand both issues from the point of view of the subject as an integral part of a system, namely at the level of communication, structure and relational dynamics. The study pertinence, emerges from the scarcity of scientific information on both aspects from the systemic point of view, because until then these tend to be studied at personal and gender level. The main goal remains in two fronts: first in the foreground on the analysis and characterization of two couples in therapeutic process in a scientific society region of the Lisbon region, based on theoretical reference support, namely the Communication Theory, the Circumplex Model of Conjugal and Family Systems, Focus Theory Relational-Symbolic and Family Systems Theory, genogram; and ultimately, the deepening of the respective themes with a comparative case study, between addiction to gambling and sexual intercourse. As method, a comparative case study was chosen, based on two couples participating in a systemic conjugal therapy in scientific society and whose problems seemed to be different. As tools, were used a family characterization grid, the elaboration of genograms in three therapeutic moments for each couples and, in a complementary way, the Systemic Clinical Outcome Routine Evaluation (SCORE-15). As results, during three evaluation moments, significant evolutions were obtained in several areas of marital relationship in both couples, namely in new communication standards and in boundaries setting. At a comparative level, despite the antagonistic problems, it was also found the presence of similarities on the operational relational pattern in both couples.