Brain damage might help gamblers

Brain damage can sometimes give gamblers a winning edge, an American study suggests. The researchers take a flier at explaining how and why certain brain lesions might, in some circumstances, help a person to triumph over others or over adversity.

The study – Investment Behavior and the Negative Side of Emotion – published in the journal Psychological Science, renders its tantalising, juicy question into lofty academese. The five co-authors, led by Baba Shiv, a marketing professor at Stanford University, ask: “Can dysfunction in neural systems subserving emotion lead, under certain circumstances, to more advantageous decisions?”

So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.

POSSIBLY-RELATED BONUS: A book called The Hypomanic Edge