News / Health & Wellness
Brain Holds Clues to Addiction
Results from a new study may have us one step closer to unlocking the connection between the brain and root causes of addiction.
Experts have long believed that the brain holds clues to the root causes of addiction. A new National Institutes of Health (NIH) has uncovered an early step in the cascade of brain events leading up to addiction.
Proteins and Addiction
A report released Aug. 15, 2010 claimed that the study’s findings represent additional clues to help predict vulnerability to drug abuse. A regulatory protein best known for its role in a rare genetic brain disorder also may play a critical role in cocaine addiction, according to a recent study in rats, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The study was published Aug. 15 in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla. found that cocaine consumption increased levels of a regulatory protein called MeCP2 that shuttles back to the nucleus to influence gene expression in the brains of rats. As levels of MeCP2 increased in the brain, so did the animals' motivation to self-administer cocaine. This suggests that MeCP2 plays a crucial role in regulating cocaine intake in rats and perhaps in determining vulnerability to addiction.
"This discovery, using an animal model of addiction, has exposed an important effect of cocaine at the molecular level that could prove key to understanding compulsive drug taking," said Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of NIDA. "It should open up new avenues of research on the causes and ways to counter the behavioral changes linked to addiction in humans."
"This study represents another piece in the puzzle of determining vulnerability to cocaine addiction," said Paul J. Kenny, senior author on the study and an associate professor at Scripps. "If we can continue putting the pieces together, we may be able to determine whether there are viable treatments for this condition."
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