| Title | Potential New Treatment for Drug Addiction Relapse Revealed | |
| Date | Tuesday June 19 2018, @08:00AM | |
| Author | mrpg | |
| Topic | ||
| from the war-on-drugs-with-brains dept. | ||
Research published in Addiction Biology by scientists at the University of Bath reveals a new potential mechanism for combatting drug addiction relapse.
Relapsing into drug taking is a big problem in treating addiction, where the majority of addicts return to drug-taking within 12 months of quitting. This is brought into focus by the burgeoning 'opioid epidemic' of prescription as well as recreational opioid drugs, such as morphine and heroin. Addiction relapse is associated with drug-related cues such as places, drug paraphernalia, the drug itself, or stress, highlighting that memories play a key role in addiction relapse.
In this study researchers at Bath, working with colleagues from the University of Surrey and RenaSci, used an animal model to study relapse to morphine seeking behaviour. Rats or mice learned to associate particular environmental cues with morphine. After removal of the drugs, relapse back to drug-seeking behaviour occurred in response to getting the cues again.
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printed from SoylentNews, Potential New Treatment for Drug Addiction Relapse Revealed on 2023-07-11 01:58:34