"One of the key elements of the new study was ensuring that treatments don't dampen the same neural responses that enable people to enjoy the positive feelings they receive from activities such as eating and exercising. Part of the reason it's so hard to treat drug addiction is because they essentially hijack brain circuits that are involved in processing natural rewards and essentially overstimulate those when these addictive drugs are ingested, said Scott Sternson, a study leader from UCSD's Department of Neurosciences."
"So the trick there was to be able to modify that system so it would only get turned off when cocaine was in the system. The study, conducted over several years, uses an approach that engineers artificial proteins (referred to as ion channels) in the brain that are activated by and bound to cocaine. As a result, brain cell activity is changed and therefore the positive feedback loop seen in addiction is effectively reversed."
An approach engineers artificial ion-channel proteins that bind to cocaine and activate only when cocaine is present, altering brain-cell activity and reversing the positive feedback loop of addiction. The method preserves neural responses to natural rewards such as eating and exercise by engaging selectively in the presence of the drug. In rat experiments, cocaine-seeking behavior decreased using this technique. Broader clinical use will depend on further research and successful human trials. The approach offers a selective biochemical strategy to disrupt drug-driven reward overactivation without dampening normal reward processing.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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