Speaker Bio
Joy's academic journey spans diverse disciplines, from literature and law to medicine, psychology, and neuroscience. While pursuing her BSc in psychology at the University of Luxembourg, she developed a profound interest in the intricate neurocircuits of psychiatric disorders, sparking her exploration of neuropsychopharmacology and neuroimaging during her research master's in neuroscience at Maastricht University. Seeking diverse perspectives, Joy studied and conducted research at the James Cook University in Singapore and the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. Now at the University of Exeter, she coordinates a mechanistic study on ketamine's potential for treating gambling addiction and focuses on characterising neural patterns induced by psychedelics and ketamine. As she embarks on a PhD at the University of Exeter, Joy will explore the therapeutic potential of ketamine and classical psychedelics for managing opioid withdrawal. Joy is committed to advancing research methodologies through a transdisciplinary approach.
ICPR 2024 Abstract
Exploring the neurobiological and psychological mechanisms of ketamine in problematic gambling: A mechanistic study
Ketamine, an NMDA-receptor antagonist, exhibits a wide spectrum of applicability in psychiatric disorders. With established efficacy in addressing substance addictions, ketamine's therapeutic potential could extend to behavioural addictions.
We aimed to selectively weaken maladaptive memories driving gambling in people at a low to high risk of developing gambling disorder by pharmacologically disrupting memory reconsolidation with ketamine. Ketamine has also been shown to sub-acutely increase long term potentiation (LTP) in the visual cortex. We aimed to investigate whether this might occur in gamblers and whether this too may have impacts on any sub-clinical changes in gambling symptoms.
39 at-risk participants were recruited from the community. Using a double-blind, placebo-controlled design, a single dose of sublingual ketamine (100 mg) or placebo was administered. Participants' reactivity to gambling cues, gambling symptoms and mood were measured, and acute subjective experiences were assessed. A subset of 21 participants completed a visual LTP electroencephalogram (EEG) paradigm.
Ketamine did not significantly affect cue reactivity, gambling symptoms or mood. Applying dynamic causal modelling to the visual LTP EEG recordings, we uncovered increased inhibitory connectivity under ketamine, which positively correlated with self-reported subjective effects.
Despite a lack of changes in cue reactivity and gambling symptoms, our findings revealed a novel association between ketamine-induced connectivity changes in LTP and heightened subjective experiences. Methodological shortcomings of our study highlight the need for refined experimental designs, while the identified connectivity-subjective experience link offers a potential new avenue for exploring ketamine's effects on cognitive processes beyond its traditional therapeutic scope.