Objectives: Pathological gambling can be potentiated by treatment with dopamine agonists. Aripiprazole, bearing a partial agonist activity at dopamine D2 and D3 receptors, has also been linked to such a behavioral aberration, usually on subjects predisposed with tendency of impulsive or addictive behaviors.
Methods: Review of patient's medical records and literature review.
Results: Two young patients' pathological gambling emerged simply due to exposure to aripiprazole, neither related to manic or psychotic symptoms nor with history of addictive or impulsive behaviors. Their pathological gambling disappeared soon after switching aripiprazole to other antipsychotics. One patient has tested such a relationship by reexposure to aripiprazole while his compulsion to gamble recurred.
Conclusions: In addition to previously recognized risk factors, pathological gambling might occur in young patients whose history did not reveal an addictive tendency while they were sensitive to the pharmacological effect, as well as adverse effects, of psychotropic agents.