Scientists Find Way to Reverse Effects of Cocaine

Promising Research on Lab Mice Could Lead to Better Treatment for Addicts

LONDON - Researchers working with laboratory mice have found a way to
reverse the effects of cocaine on the brain, according to a study
published on Thursday that could lead to better treatments for drug
addicts.

The researchers focused on the part of the brain they knew was
involved with pleasure and addictive drugs and found a way to repress
hyperactive cells charged up by cocaine.

Scientists have long studied what parts of the brain are affected by
cocaine but this study is the first to identify the mechanism needed
to reverse the effects of cocaine, said Christian Luscher, the Swiss
researcher who led the study.

"This is the piece of the puzzle that was not known before -- the
mechanism a cell uses to get back to normal," he said in a telephone
interview.

The study, published in the journal Science, builds on Luscher's
earlier research that identified the part of the brain where cells
became excited after cocaine use.

The goal this time was to figure a way to reverse the impact of
cocaine on receptors in the brain, said Luscher, a neuroscientist at
the University of Geneva.

Receptors are the proteins responsible for transferring all
information in the brain and which eventually produce feelings of
satisfaction and pleasure and play a key role in addiction, Luscher
said.

In the study, the team targeted the receptors that go into overdrive
after cocaine use.

They found in order to correct the imbalance brought on by cocaine
they needed to replace the affected receptors with new ones.

To do this they administered a short burst of stimulation to another
set of receptors to repress the hyper-charged cells, Luscher said.

"We have reversed the effect of cocaine and we show how the machinery
in the cells has to be engaged in order to be reversed," he said.

The research could make it easier to treat addicts because scientists
now know what needs to be done in the brain to modify the effect of
drug use, Luscher said.

He also hopes the research will spur others to look at drug addiction
as a brain disease and target treatment and studies focused on this.

"This sort of sets the framework for what is needed to reverse the
cocaine," Luscher said in a telephone interview.