UBC TEAM FINDS CHEMICAL CLUE TO CURING ADDICTION

Substance Helps Make Brain 'Forget' Euphoric Feeling

A team of researchers at the University of B.C. believes it may have found
a way to trick the brain into forgetting the euphoric effects of drug
addiction.

The finding could lead to new therapies to treat drug addiction and
relapses, as well as compulsive behaviours associated with schizophrenia.

The key lies in a specially created peptide, or protein fragment, which
blocks communication between brain cells that trigger drug cravings.

In experiments with amphetamine-addicted rats, the peptide created by
senior UBC investigators Dr. Anthony Phillips and Dr. Yu Tian Wang appears
to block specific chemical messengers that allow the brain to remember the
body's response to stimulant drugs such as amphetamines and cocaine.

The researchers established models for the behaviour of addicted rats, and
found their behaviour changed after they were given the peptide.

"They didn't have the same kind of response," team member and post-doctoral
fellow Tak Pan Wong said Friday.

"They don't remember they got addicted. This is like damaging a bad memory
in the brain, which is the memory of addiction."

As a result, impulses to renew the drug sensation are reduced or eliminated.

Wong said while the role of dopamine neurotransmission within the brain is
well understood in relation to drug addiction, that team has found that
glutamate synaptic transmission actually plays a very important role.

Glutamate, which is the major excitatory transmitter in the brain and can
have profound effects on behaviour, can be blocked by the peptide created
by the UBC team.

Exchange of chemical messages within the brain is called synaptic function.

The UBC research shows, for the first time, the mechanism of synaptic
function related to memory. The findings are published in the Nov. 25 issue
of Science.

"This is the first direct evidence," said Wong.

The breakthrough was aided by a $1.5-million grant from the NeuroScience
Canada Brain Repair Program, a national umbrella organization for
neuroscience research, which allowed five scientists across Canada to link
their labs and fast-track their research.

The UBC members work at the Brain Research Centre at UBC Hospital.

Although the initial results are promising, Wong warned it will be some
time before experiments could begin on human beings.

"We are going to finish the tests in animals within a year or 18 months,"
he said. "After that we will see the possibility of trying it in humans, so
I'd say the next four or five years."