addiction

Controversial drug shown to act on brain protein to cut alcohol use

Medicationagainst nicotine addiction is nowadays readily available. However, asimilar a...identified a natural compound able to blockalcohol addiction in rodents. We can only hope that anti-alcoholismpatchs or gum will be available in a close future; ...

Drug That 'Tags' Decision-making Areas Of The Brain May Aid

...of the brain that havebeen implicated in nicotine addiction may help studies of people battling other disorder... for future human brainimaging studies of nicotine addiction and other clinical conditions inwhich these brain regions have been implicated,?Mukherjee said.He fo...

Key Trigger Of Opioid Withdrawal Symptoms Found

...to be involved in such withdrawal symptoms. Opiate addiction inhibits neuron activity in this region, which alters the neuronal machinery to compensate for this inhibition. Upon opiate withdrawal, the neurons rebound, becoming hyperactive. The scientists' analysis revealed that a transporter molecule for the ...

VCU Researchers Identify Networks Of Genes Responding To Alcohol In The Brain

...ory and learning, including that which occurs with addiction to alcohol or other drugs, Miles said. In the study, approximately 400 genes were identified as alcohol regulated in at least one brain region of either mouse strain. According to Miles, most of these genes showed regulation in only one or the other...

Potential Drug Target For Treating Cocaine Abuse Found

...m," says Katz. "An effective treatment for cocaine addiction would be of immeasurable help to these individuals and their families." ...

Bees, Brains and Addiction

...imself are gaining a better understanding of human addiction by examining simpler brains, such as those of bees... to learn more about the neurobiology of drugs and addiction for their science class. The next lecture in the series will be given May 24 by Ralph Greenspan of ...

Prescription pain patch abuse blamed for increase in deaths

...night Brain Institute and chief of the division of addiction medicine, has been focused on the use and abuse of prescription drugs. In the past few years his team has seen increased abuse of methadone, and now fentanyl. "Based on our study we're recommending that physicians better educate their patients on th...

Many smokers fail to quit after cancer diagnosis

...r continue to smoke or relapse. Treatment for this addiction has largely been focused on healthy smokers and is critically dependent on smoker motivation. The diagnosis of cancer, according to research, is a strong motivator for many smokers and thus, provides a window of opportunity to begin treatment for smo...

Grabbing addiction by the tail

... cravings of addicted rats. One of the problems in addiction is that neurons in some parts of the brain lose gl... think this is a good candidate for a drug against addiction that has very few side effects," said Wang, a neuroscientist . Although the initial studies are prom...

A link is found between morphine addiction and the tendency to explore

...perimental evidence in rats showing a link between addiction to morphine and the tendency to explore perseverin... scientifically through experiments with rats that addiction to morphine is related to a tendency to explore perseveringly and to search for new sensations. Usin...

Environmental metagenomics diagnosing extreme environments, tapping opportunities for clean energy

...d technology is the best way to break the nation's addiction to oil. The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) is directing the technology of DNA sequencing to scan the environment for processes that will lead to cheaper and easier to produce biofuels. "Through DNA sequencing and the t...

How the brain learns to become addicted

...could offer an important target for drugs to treat addiction by short-circuiting that adaptive process. In an ...may prove to be fruitful targets in the search for addiction medications." Bonci and his colleagues based their experiments on past studies by other researchers...

Scientific issues associated with carbon-neutral energy sources such as cellulosic ethanol

...esearch effort designed to help break the nation's addiction to oil. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Somerville recently published the guest editorial in Science (June 2, 2006, Volume 312) concerning bioenergy research. He is a grantee of the DOE Office of Science's Basic Energy Sciences compet...

DOE publishes research roadmap for developing cleaner fuels

...nt to support the President's goal of breaking our addiction to oil, while also enhancing our energy security." ...

Brain's 'gambling circuitry' identified

...rs wrote that "pathological behaviors ranging from addiction to gambling, as well as a variety of mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, are partially characterized by risk taking. To date, it is unknown whether such pathological decision making under risk is due to misperception of risk ...

Smokers invite to test vaccine against nicotine addiction

...i Biopharmaceuticals to prevent and treat nicotine addiction and to help people quit smoking. Normally when a smoker inhales, nicotine is carried by the bloodstream to the brain, where it triggers neuro-receptors to generate positive sensations that can lead to addiction. The vaccine stimulates the immune syst...

Leptin has powerful effect on reward center in the brain

...at are important in modulating motivated behavior, addiction and reward. Reducing the function of the leptin receptor in the VTA region resulted in animals that ate too much and were hypersensitive to highly palatable foods. "Interestingly, despite the increase in food intake, these animals did not gain weig...

Pleasure and pain: Study shows brain's 'pleasure chemical' is involved in response to pain too

...plain why people are more likely to acquire a drug addiction during times of intense stress in their lives. It ... gives further evidence that vulnerability to drug addiction is a very individual phenomenon ?and one that can't be predicted by current knowledge of genetics an...

Altered perception of reward in human cocaine addiction

... studies at a press conference on neuroscience and addiction at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, on Sunday, October 15, 2006, 2 to 3 p.m., and at a SfN symposium on Wednesday, October 18, 8:30 a.m.* Goldstein's experiments were designed to test a theoretical model, call...

Study highlights new and cheaper way to treat heroin addiction

...rgh, who is the study’s main author, said: "Heroin addiction is a chronic condition requiring long-term medication. Just as with other chronic conditions, such as diabetes or arthritis, there should be a number of treatments available so that doctors and nurses can tailor medication to the needs of each patien...

New research identifies gene important for nicotine's effects on the brain

...g which pathways are really important for nicotine addiction as opposed to other types of abuse. Picciotto's research used both genetically engineered mice with altered nicotine receptors and viruses that could block CREB function. She and her colleagues showed that one type of nicotine receptor was importan...

Smokers quit after damage to brain region

...y of its kind to use brain lesions to study a drug addiction in humans," Naqvi said. In the 1990s, Antonio Da...ddictions. The discovery of the insula's role in addiction opens new directions for therapies, Bechara said, including possible drugs targeted to a region that...

Morphine makes lasting -- and surprising -- change in the brain

...ntist Julie Kauer, may help explain the origins of addiction in the brain. The research also supports a provocative new theory of addiction as a disease of learning and memory. "We’ve added a new piece to the puzzle of how addictive drug...

Long-term narcotics use for back pain may be ineffective and lead to abuse

...ncerns clinicians have with patients developing an addiction to these medications," said first author Bridget Martell, M.D., assistant clinical professor of general internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine. "Our findings suggest that clinicians should consider other treatments with similar benefits but few...

Re-analysis of cigarettes confirms tobacco companies increased addictive nicotine 11 percent

... deliver sufficient nicotine to create and sustain addiction influences their selection and combination of design parameters." Cigarette smoking causes an estimated 438,000 premature deaths (or about 1 of every 5 deaths) annually in the U.S., and approximately 900,000 persons become addicted to smoking each...

OHSU lab finds meth receptor that could lead to therapy

...ew target for pharmaceutical therapy to treat meth addiction and also reduce the negative manifestations of its abuse. "Meth addiction is such a problem and we have nothing to treat it with except group support therapy," Grandy said. "...

Bioluminescence at the service of a novel cerebral imaging technique

...he context of a pharmacological approach regarding addiction to different drugs (alcohol, nicotine, cocaine, etc.)....

New compound prevents alcoholic behavior, relapse in animals by blocking stress response

...l barrier, closer to the day when the dark side of addiction is treated." The new findings build on previous work showing the effectiveness of blocking certain CRF receptors—proteins that bind CRF and make it active—in treating alcohol dependence in animals. CRF levels in the brain rise in the short term a...

In young mice, gregariousness seems to reside in the genes

... of new, more effective drugs to treat depression, addiction and autism. "We are quite confident it is genetic," says Jules B. Panksepp, a UW-Madison neuroscience graduate student and the lead author of the new study, which was conducted using two different strains of young mice, one gregarious in nature, t...

NIDA study identifies genes that might help some people abstain from smoking

...r toward tailoring individualized drug therapy for addiction based on an individual’s unique genetic makeup. ... marks a movement from identifying the genetics of addiction vulnerability to identifying the genetic basis of successful abstinence. This knowledge could impact...

New study examines 'brain's own marijuana'

...nships between stress, stress-related behavior and addiction using a combination of electrophysiological, pharmacological and neurochemical approaches. They believe this study also may lay the foundation for better pharmacotherapy for stress-related mood disorders. Wood is an associate professor in the Departm...

'Smart' mice teach scientists about learning process, brain disorders

...5 is heavily implicated in Alzheimer’s disease and addiction to drugs of abuse, so understanding how the enzyme affects the brain and behavior might aid in the development of new treatments for these and other conditions, Dr. Bibb said. The key in this study was being able to "knock out" the gene for Cdk5 ...