U.S. SCIENTISTS SAY DRUG MAY HELP COCAINE ADDICTS

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An epilepsy drug shows promise as the first
pharmaceutical treatment for cocaine addiction and possibly other
dependencies such as nicotine and morphine, U.S. scientists announced
Wednesday.

The scientists said experiments on rats and baboons indicated that the drug
prevented the "high" and other effects of cocaine in much the same way it
prevents an epileptic seizure, by altering the way brain cells communicate
with each other.

The drug, Vigabatrin, has been available in Europe for more than a decade
for treating epilepsy, but approval by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) was not expected until October, the researchers said.
The medication is known as Sabril in the United States and is made by
Hoechst Marion Roussel.

"We now believe that very shortly, we will be able to offer hope to those
who are looking for it and to those who need it most," Dr. Stephen Dewey, a
neuroanatomist who led the research team, told a news conference. "Our
concerns are not only for those people and their families who are addicted
today but extend to those at risk of becoming addicted tomorrow." He said
the drug is not addictive, does not create tolerance and does not produce
withdrawal or obviously harmful side effects, unlike some pharmaceutical
treatments for drug addiction.

The findings by researchers from the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)
in Upton, New York, New York University, St. John's University in New York,
the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Boston University were also
published Wednesday in the journal Synapse.

The scientists reported that preliminary data showed that the drug might be
effective in combatting addictions to nicotine, morphine and some
amphetamines. But they emphasized that the data had not yet been subjected
to peer review and declined to discuss it further.

They said that in the fall, BNL and New York University plan to start a
90-day clinical trial to test the drug's effectiveness on volunteer human
cocaine addicts.

"The purpose of the clinical trial is to establish how much should be given
and for how long and in what kinds of patients," said New York University
psychiatrist Jonathan Brodie, who began working with Dewey in 1986. The
finding announced Wednesday was born out of their research on treatments
for schizophrenia.

Brodie said that he hoped once the FDA approved the drug for epilepsy it
would not be used for "idiosyncratic" tests of cocaine abusers.

"This is too important an issue to be done in a cavalier way by doctors in
an office," Brodie told reporters. "The problems of addiction are very
complex and everyone needs to be aware of that."

Vigabatrin is used to treat epilepsy because it increases the amount of the
brain's most common neurotransmitter called GABA (gamma amino butyric
acid), improving communication between brain cells. This moderates the
effects of uncontrolled neurotransmitter releases that cause epileptic
seizures.

The drug stops production of dopamine, the brain's "feel good" chemical
that is at the heart of addiction to drugs.

Dewey said researchers studied the brain scans of baboons before and after
they had taken cocaine. The primates that had been given a dose of
Vigabatrin before their cocaine dose showed normal levels of dopamine in
the brain, compared with those that had not been given the epilepsy drug.

Researchers also gave cocaine to rats repeatedly over several days and
monitored their tendency to go to a place where they had obtained cocaine
before. With Vigabatrin, the rodents did not stay in the place associated
with cocaine but moved around their cage.

The scientists said the finding was important for people who are addicted
to cocaine and other drugs because their cravings are often sparked by
factors such as seeing similar-looking substances or a person with whom
they might have shared drugs.

"With this drug we can significantly block the biochemical effects of
cocaine in both the rodent and the primate brain," Dewey said.

The research, using 500 rats and 20 primates, was sponsored by the
Department of Energy, which operates BNL, and the National Institute of
Mental Health with involvement by the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

^REUTERS@

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski