Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Scientists hunt down the brain circuit responsible for alcohol cravings
Scientists at Scripps Research have found that they can reverse the desire to drink in alcohol-dependent rats—with the flip of a switch. The researchers were able to use lasers to temporarily inactivate a specific neuronal population, reversing alcohol-seeking behavior and even reducing the physical symptoms of withdrawal.
[...] Although the laser treatment is far from ready for human use, [associate professor Olivier] George believes identifying these neurons opens the door to developing drug therapies or even gene therapies for alcohol addiction.
[...] George and his colleagues have been hunting for the brain cells that driving drinking in an alcohol-addicted rat model. In 2016, they reported that they had found a possible source: a neuronal “ensemble,” or group of connected cells in a brain region called the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA).
[...] For the new study, they tested the role of a subset of neurons in the ensemble, called corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) neurons. The George laboratory had found that these CRF neurons make up 80 percent of the ensemble.
[...] First, the scientists established a baseline for how much the rats would drink before they got addicted to alcohol. The rats drank little this point—the equivalent of a glass of wine or one beer for a human. The scientists then spent several months increasing consumption in these rats to establish alcohol dependence.
The researchers then withdrew the alcohol, prompting withdrawal symptoms in the rats. When they offered alcohol again, the rats drank more than ever. The CeA neuronal ensemble was active, telling the rats to drink more.
Then the scientists flipped on the lasers to inactivate the CRF neurons—and the results were dramatic. The rats immediately returned to their pre-dependent drinking levels. The intense motivation to drink had gone away. Inactivating these neurons also reduced the physical symptoms of withdrawal, such as abnormal gait and shaking.
[...] The effect was even reversible. Turn off the lasers, and the rats returned to their dependent behavior.
Inactivation of a CRF-dependent amygdalofugal pathway reverses addiction-like behaviors in alcohol-dependent rats, Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09183-0)
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @01:38PM
Or, Nigel DePardieu. No text, just name calling. Racist Poms!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday March 23 2019, @01:52PM (11 children)
I'll drink to that!
Seriously though, anything to destroy the proselytizing Christian organization that is AA. I'm happy to pay for any research on alcoholism as long as the AA stop converting people under false pretenses.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @04:15PM (2 children)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @04:43PM (1 child)
It's a habit, you have to change it and the things associated with it to break it. Heroin addicts can cold turkey and get over the physical addiction, then as soon as they're back in the environment where they used to take the drug they relapse. The "tools" you need is this knowledge, everything else is / was down to your will power. So well done you!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @05:16PM
If it were *just* a habit, or a matter of willpower, I'd have gotten sober much much earlier. My drinking was a symptom of underlying causes.
Stopping drinking was necessary, but not sufficient.
My inability to live my life on life's terms. I was continually resentful, angry, frustrated. At times without even being aware of it! Now that I have learned and practiced a different way of seeing things that happen, I no longer feel any temptation.
To get to that point meant facing some things in my life that I could not do alone. Or even with the help of wwll-meaning friends or professional help.
*I* had to do the work myself.
Trying to explain alcoholism to someone who can take-it-or-leave-it, or even to a problem drinker is like trying to explain an orgasm to a virgin.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 23 2019, @05:04PM (6 children)
Citations? I've carried a few people to AA meetings, over the years. It helped some, didn't help others. Sat through many meetings, and never heard anything to suggest that AA is a Christian organization. AA does encourage those who are so inclined to get in touch with a higher power. If you're Hindu, fine, if you're Moslem, fine, if you believe in the Flying Spaghett Deviant, fine. I've heard a lot of "Praise the Lords" out of AA members, but never any sort of pressure to "Find Jesus".
I can imagine that if ALL the members at your local meetings were Christian, you might feel as if AA were a Christian organization. And, if all of the members were Moslem, you might feel like it were a Moslem organization.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @10:10PM (1 child)
Insensitive infidel, Muslims don't drink alcohol. Q: What do you call a Muslim AA meeting? A: Friday Night Apostate Beheading Hour.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mendax on Saturday March 23 2019, @11:51PM
Muslims do indeed drink alcohol. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the father of Pakistan, and Kemal Attaturk, the father of modern Turkey, were both alcoholics. I think it was Attaturk's liver that quit because his drinking. They were great men but not very good role models for what was a good Muslim.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Sunday March 24 2019, @05:05AM (3 children)
It's effectively a legacy result of the fact that AA was a branch of (and originally conceived as) a Christian organization called The Oxford Group that considered alcoholism to be a "sin" that members needed "God's" help to overcome. (This article [nacr.org] covers it pretty well.) So while the official handbook doesn't use the exact term "the Christian God" or similar, its Twelve Traditions and Twelve Steps are full of lines that really don't work well if the "higher power" is (for example) female, non-gendered, a non-sentient secular concept (i.e. science), punitive rather than loving, etc.
From the Twelve Traditions about how the group is to be run, for example, there is the rule, "For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience."
The Twelve Steps then state that its members:
Historical info about AA's founding mention that they originally decided to add the "as we understood Him" wording in order to avoid alienating agnostics. Trouble is, as I mention above, if you replace the references with the word "science" then the sentences don't make sense (science isn't a sentient entity that one prays to and asks to magically remove defects), and if you replace them with "the Flying Spaghetti Monster" then it turns into a parody of itself. Technically speaking, I suppose that means AA is a Christianity-derived org that was designed for Christians but tries to be somewhat inclusive.
If you have a lot of time on your hands, The Orange Papers: Religious Roots of AA [orange-papers.org] covers the lurid tale in a lot more depth than anything else I've encountered.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 24 2019, @05:23AM (1 child)
Interesting. I had a pretty clear idea *what* AA is, but not so clear an idea "why" AA is. That all makes sense - it grew out of a Christian background.
So, they were fifty years ahead of their time? I still point out that in actual meetings, I never once heard any pressure to "get saved" or "find Jesus". AA members always seemed to accept that a person's beliefs were private, and left that bag of worms unopened.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @02:31PM
AA groups will vary depending on who runs them. Most AA/NA are generally secular with a bit of "pray to whatever you believe in and that'll help" mixed in, but a few will be more religiously oriented.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @11:07AM
Thank you for the dialog.
I read the article pointed to by your first source, The National Association for Christian Recovery (NACR). First off, it misquoted the first step in its comparison of the 12 steps to scripture passages. Secondly, it does quote its sources in the AA literature from which it has selected passages that seems to advocate for proselytizing Christianity. It appears to me that they had a point they wanted to make and found passages to support it. (Even the devil can quote scripture.) I would strongly suggest reading the foundational sources they referenced:
Further, based on past experience, it appears to be written by an academic as opposed to someone who has actually experienced addiction.
Reading it, for me, is like hearing "A man has relations with a woman and a baby is made." So far as it goes it is not... wrong, but it is missing something.
I have been to literally thousands of meetings in 3 different states and have heard speakers from all around the United States. In all those meetings, I only once recall a meeting where a speaker was all "fire and brimstone." Some, newly sober, may say something like "What you gotta do is..." I had (and still have) a strong aversion to anyone commanding me to do anything. What I heard many, many others share -- from those who had been around for a few years -- was a simple sharing of how the disease of Alcoholism had destroyed their lives. Incarceration. Hospitalizations. Attempted suicide. And how practicing the Twelve Steps freed them from that addiction.
As I struggled in early recovery with the "god thing" (and at the time as a practicing Catholic, no less!), it was suggested to me that I could use any concept of a higher power that worked for me. G.O.D. could stand for Group Of Drunks. Here were people who had felt as I did and found a way out. When it came to alcoholism, were they not a power greater than myself? How about Gift Of Desperation? When drowning, and someone tosses me something to help stay afloat, I'm not going to be too picky about it being an official life ring, I'll try anything that might work. Good Orderly Direction was another one. Though I was trying hard, my efforts were not well organized to get me out of this hole I found myself in. Others had been where I was. Would I be willing to hear how they got out of their hole (what they did and how it worked) and consider using that in my own life.
I still struggled. But, gradually tried the Group Of Drunks approach. If I could hold out from drinking each day until I got to a meeting that night, somehow I knew I'd be okay. And that small bit of hope was the start of a process that helped me stay sober for over 25 years. Today, my concept of a higher power is not the one I was raised with. I can't even tell you what it is, because I don't even know. But I've seen enough happen in my life, and others, to know that: I live my life as if there were a power greater than myself which will keep me sober and help me to deal with life's challenges.
I don't have to know how a phone works to make a phone call. Electrical standards. Signaling protocols. Don't need to know any of that. Press these buttons to enter a certain number and... voila! I can talk to someone across the street or around the world. I don't need to know how a car works to use one. Fuel system. Transmission. Electrical system. Suspension. Metal alloys. Don't need to know. Start the car. Step on the accelerator. Step on the brake. Turn the wheel. I can make use of something even if I am ignorant of exactly how it works or even what it is made of. I took a similar approach to the concept of a Higher Power. My conception has changed over time, and will likely continue to do so. Doesn't concern me.
Oh, and in case you may be wondering... during the time I've been sober, I have buried both my parents, been diagnosed with major clinical depression, been incarcerated for 6 weeks on false charges, experienced job layoffs... and did not drink. In the past, I drank for far less 'justification' than that. Had a hard day at work was previously sufficient!
I am really pressed for time at the moment, but hopefully something that I have shared here will be of help.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday March 23 2019, @05:58PM
I know some folks in AA. It depends a lot on the local meeting and even regional organization how much control the Christian Taliban types have. There are other groups where choosing a non-religious "higher power" is just fine (e.g. "I turn myself over to the laws of science that teach me how bad drinking is for me").
There are also some non-AA anti-alcoholism support groups too, in part to give people who've gotten a DUI an option other than state-mandated religious indoctrination.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @04:15PM (1 child)
Just find the part of the brain that deals with reality. Reality, and trying to escape it for a little while, is what makes me drink.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @05:47PM
Is it reality that's the problem or the perception of it, what consequences it may bring, and an inability to forsee a path through them?
In a word: fear.
Most commonly manifested as a fear of not getting what I want, or fear of losing something I already have. Or, maybe, fear of getting what I don't want (e.g. facing the consequences of actions where I might get "found out"?
The Twelve Steps of AA, with the help and guidance of a sponsor who has been through them, has helped me to see the same situation... differently. I faced those fears. Made amends for my wrongs. Made peace with them. I no longer have all that "noise" in my head. I am less tempted to repeat past selfish behaviors. Sometimes I slip into my old ways, but I realize I am human and will make mistakes. They no longer own me like they used to. I try, as best I can, to set things right. And then can face the world again. And with that, the temptation of a drink is lifted. And any thought of one is usually fleeting: that's not going to help.
I am free of that feeling of helplessness and hopelessness.
Freedom.
I would not trade my worst day, sober, for my best day drinking.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Saturday March 23 2019, @05:16PM
Now, can they find the f-ed up circuit responsible for cell phone addiction, the desire to post drek on Twatter, or the cravings for bright blue LEDs?
Oh, right. This research will be used to INCREASE addiction because that is profitable.
(Score: 4, Funny) by krishnoid on Saturday March 23 2019, @09:13PM (1 child)
Well yeah, because at that point the rats were less drunk and immediately realized they were staring straight at a shark.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @10:18PM
I came back to this article because first pass, ther was no such references. +1 funny.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @11:56PM (1 child)
I am a pornography addict and regularly attend meetings of a Twelve Step fellowship that addresses sex addiction. I wonder if this treatment for alcoholism would address my compulsion for porn. BTW, the Twelve Steps helped me to have a measure of control over it, for ten years now.
(Score: 2) by rylyeh on Sunday March 24 2019, @12:18AM
One can only hope this area of the brain may control many addictions.
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2019, @03:07PM
the related patents have already been sold to a consortium of alcoholic beverage manufacturers.