Internet Addiction (IA) is proposed to be added as a research diagnosis to the upcoming DSM-V while Pathological Gambling (PG) is proposed to be subsumed under the new section “Addiction and related disorders” as first behavioral addiction. The outpatient clinic for behavioral addiction of the clinic for psychosomatic medicine in Mainz offers counseling and treatment to patients suffering from IA and PG. Deficits in impulse control are suggested to be a key factor to addiction. Studies in PG have shown deficits in the ability to control impulses, for example in decision making, resisting temptation or behavioral inhibition. For Internet addiction previous research on impulse control is sparse, yet leads to the suggestion that deficits might be present. Other studies on neurocognitive differences between impulse control disorders and addictions lead to the conclusion that PG rather resembles addiction-specific deficits (Goudriaan, 2006). A direct comparison between PG and IA is missing.

Patients with IA and PG were screened with a clinical intake interview and self-report measures. Both groups were compared to healthy controls matched for gender and age. Three paradigms assessing impulse control included a modification of the Iowa Gambling Task (assessing deficits in decision making), a delay discounting paradigm (assessing the ability to resist temptation), and a behavioral Go-NoGo-Task (assessing behavioral inhibition). Additionally a measure of positive and negative affect was included. As expected both IA and PG differed from controls and only small differences between PG and IA were found. IA showed less impulse control deficits than PG.