A computer betting game can help predict the likelihood that someone recovering from opioid addiction will reuse the pain-relieving drugs, a new study shows.
The game, now being developed as an app, tests each patient's comfort with risk-taking, producing mathematical scores called betas long used by economists to measure consumers' willingness to try new products.
The team then used a statistical test to see whether changes in risk-taking comfort tracked with opioid reuse, and found that people who placed higher-risk bets had higher beta scores.
When combined with other test scores that quiz a patient about recent drug use and desire to use drugs, or cravings, the study found that patients who showed sharp increases in their total beta scores were as much as 85 percent likely to reuse within the next week.
By contrast, those whose beta scores did not undergo a spike were much less likely to reuse during treatment, usually a combination of talk therapy and drugs to wean patients off their opioid addiction.
