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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 Thexalon on Tuesday July 03 2018, @04:51PM (5 children)
Half of the problem is the physical addiction and cravings. My understanding, from those who have gone through it, is that physical withdrawal sucks but only lasts a few weeks.
The other half of the problem is psychological: People are miserable, and getting high helps relieve the pain for a little while. There no pill that cures that.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by leftover on Tuesday July 03 2018, @06:30PM (1 child)
Logged in to say this. Drug addiction is a symptom of pain and hopelessness. Perhaps we should seriously consider approaches for "curing" the causes rather than the symptom, for a change. So much effort is expended on finding a pill to cure drug addiction simply because there is a historical pattern of high monetary returns, at least for a while, in the big pharma business complex. Never mind the suffering, there is potential for gigabucks!
Granted, the causes and workings of pain/hopelessness are poorly understood. That in itself is shameful. It isn't as though there has ever been a shortage of samples. Judging from the astonishing irrelevance of much funded research, there doesn't even seem to be a shortage of funding. We need to find the blockage and shine a big light on it.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:07PM
Economic inequality is a big factor. Those in power only want to increase it though. "It is not enough that I succeed, others must fail."
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Tuesday July 03 2018, @06:31PM (2 children)
I'm willing to test your theory. Please send a one year supply of 50g, 24 karot solid gold pills. I suggest a starting dose of 3 pills per day, though a stronger dose may be required later. Generics like cash are acceptable as well.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday July 03 2018, @09:27PM (1 child)
This hypothesis has actually been tested, and apparently the drug you have in mind has zero increase in therapeutic power past dosages of about $75,000 a year in the US; in some cases, it even becomes *less* effective.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Tuesday July 03 2018, @11:28PM
Let me assure you that the misery increases per dependent. A dose of $75,000/year may work for a single adult with no dependents and only nominal debts, but with multiple adult and child dependents and prominent debt, it is only frustratingly close to enough. Though your point is valid. If a treatment is prescribed at a high enough dosage, the patient will suffer delusions and think that they can stop working. This results in many odd behaviors related to boredom which is attributed to increase drug dependency and abuse. That tends to cause misery as a side effect that the gold pill or cash generic cannot effectively treat. It's like any other drug. Too low of a dosage doesn't cause any effect and may actually cause drug resistance, and too large of a dose will harm the patient.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base