Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
A new therapeutic may help reverse chemical imbalances made to the brain by habitual drug use and could one day help recovering drug addicts avoid future drug use.
Researchers from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston developed and tested a treatment on rats and found it effective in reducing the animals' cravings. Their findings are in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.
When someone habitually misuses drugs, their brain chemistry is changed in ways that make it harder for them to quit taking drugs despite negative consequences. Once someone has developed this brain disorder, their mind pays sharper attention to cues that encourage drug use, making it harder for them to abstain.
Serotonin, a brain chemical that transmits information between neural regions, is a key player in these changes. There are currently no medications available to correct this chemical imbalance.
UTMB pharmacology and toxicology professors Jia Zhou, Kathryn Cunningham and their colleagues found that the serotonin 2C receptors in drug addicts do not work as well as they should. They designed, synthesized and pharmacologically evaluated a series of small molecule therapeutics designed to restore the weakened signaling.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Tuesday July 03 2018, @04:10PM (1 child)
5-HT receptors seem sort of wussy when you're talking about addiction - it's like trying to push on a rope compared to the more direct pathways (like the opioid receptors and the learning centers). This sounds more like "We've been looking at 5-HT drugs for a while and we need a compelling reason for doing it." Although, if they've come up with something that actually works, more power to them. I'm skeptical, though...
That is all.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:13PM
Americans going abroad for illegal heroin treatment [bbc.com]
FDA Labels Kratom an Opioid [soylentnews.org]
Study: Legal Weed Far Better Than Drug War at Stopping Opioid Overdose Epidemic [soylentnews.org]
Opioid Commission Drops the Ball, Demonizes Cannabis [soylentnews.org]
Two More Studies Link Access to Cannabis to Lower Use of Opioids [soylentnews.org]
Inconvenient evidence will simply be ignored. Anything but what works will be studied.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]