BRAIN STUDY MAY HELP FIGHT COCAINE ADDICTION by Newsday
Copyright (c) 1997, Omaha WorldHerald Company

Researchers have shown how cocaine produces its high by
studying the brains of addicts. The findings could lead to
a way to prevent or treat cocaine addiction.

Dr. Nora Volkow and her colleagues at Brookhaven
National Laboratory used a brain scan to measure the brain
chemical dopamine as cocaine traveled through addicts'
systems. Dopamine's functions include regulating
motivation, mood and movement.

The scans measured the dopamine transporter, a system
that moves dopamine from outside to inside cells.
Scientists observed that the addicts experienced a high
only when more than half of the transporters were occupied
with cocaine.

"I'm high on the findings," Michael Kuhar, a cocaine
researcher and professor of medicine at Emory University,
said of the study. It was reported Thursday in the journal
Nature.

Specialists in the field say they finally see a way to
devise treatments for some of the 2.1 million cocaine
addicts in the United States. Many policy analysts say the
true hope for progress in the drug war lies in
strategies that reduce demand, rather than trying to
attack supplies in Latin America or halt the narcotics at
the border.

In theory, scientists could develop drugs that bind to
the dopamine transporter, which in effect would lock the
brain's door to cocaine. Dr. Kuhar's lab has identified
and is studying 15 substances that could work as
nonaddicting treatments, functioning much as a nicotine
patch does for smokers.

Scientists at Columbia University are working on a
cocaine vaccine, a similar approach that would use the
body's immune system to build antibodies against cocaine,
thus preventing much of the drug from reaching the brain.
Another alternative is a cocaine antagonist, a medicine
that blocks cocaine's penchant for the dopamine
transporters and keeps it away from the brain.