Cocaine in Biological News

Cocaine: Perceived as a reward by the brain?

... in French . Montreal, May 19th 2009 - cocaine is one of the oldest drugs known to humans, and ... on the human brain or the mechanisms that lead to cocaine addiction. The latest article by Dr. Marco ... 15, 2009, not only demonstrates a link between cocaine and the reward circuits in the brain but also ...

MCG researcher among first to receive NIH stimulus funding

... the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, cocaine is the most frequently reported illicit drug ... affected. Dr. NeSmith hypothesizes that cocaine use, which can cause increased inflammation and ... risk for the disease. "Studies have shown that cocaine can affect organ function, but the specific ...

Early isolation linked to enhanced response to cocaine

... Development Alters the Behavioral Response to cocaine in Juvenile Rats, was conducted by Natasha ... and tested for the psychostimulant response to cocaine as well as for the development of sensitization, ... were injected with saline and the other half with cocaine (15 mg/kg). This was followed by a 7 day drug ...

Early isolation linked to enhanced response to cocaine

... Development Alters the Behavioral Response to cocaine in Juvenile Rats, was conducted by Natasha ... and tested for the psychostimulant response to cocaine as well as for the development of sensitization, ... were injected with saline and the other half with cocaine (15 mg/kg). This was followed by a 7 day drug ...

Honeybees succumb to cocaine's allure

... Since its discovery in the 18th century, cocaine has been a scourge of western society. Strongly stimulating human reward centres in low doses, cocaine is extremely addictive and can be fatal in high ... Macquarie University, Australia, explains that cocaine is a powerful insect neurotoxin, protecting coca ...

Honey bees on cocaine dance more, changing ideas about the insect brain

... brain, researchers have found that honey bees on cocaine tend to exaggerate. Normally, foraging honey ... bees find the food. Foraging honey bees on cocaine are more likely to dance, regardless of the ... led the researchers to study the effects of cocaine on honey bee ....

UNC, Yale partner to study effects of cocaine use on mother-infant relationships

... awarded almost $10 million to study the many ways cocaine use during pregnancy can negatively affect ... 1, based at UNC, will examine the effects of cocaine on mother-infant interactions in rodents. ... the brain development of infants exposed to cocaine and how that exposure affects their ability to ...

American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- Sept. 10, 2008

... FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Potential new drug for cocaine addiction and overdose Journal of the American ... substance ever discovered for eliminating cocaine from the body, an advance that could lead to the ... anti-cocaine medication currently exists for cocaine abuse. One of the most promising approaches ...

N.Y. research team discovers how antidepressants and cocaine interact with brain cell targets

... of how brain cells process antidepressant drugs, cocaine and amphetamines. These novel findings could ... direct effective treatments for drug addiction to cocaine and amphetamines," says co-lead author Dr. Harel ... found that in the human dopamine transporter cocaine binds in the deep site, unlike the antidepressant ...

Environmental enrichment can reduce cocaine use, researchers find

... their social groups can affect the amount of cocaine that monkeys will self-administer. Housed in ... to the most subordinate. Once exposed to cocaine and taught to self-administer the drug, the more ... enrichment or increased stress have an effect on cocaine self-administration" The answer is yes, ...

Cocaine: How addiction develops

... nervous system, which produce the messenger substance dopamine, the drug cocaine causes molecular restructuring processes at the synapses, the points of ... with a different conspicuous behavior. If control animals withdrawn from cocaine are readministered the drug after some time, addictive behavior and drug ...

Phasic firing of dopamine neurons is key to brain's prediction of rewards

... neurons we are studying are the same neurons that become inactivated during Parkinson's Disease and with the consumption of psychostimulants such as cocaine and amphetamine," said Paladini, who is also a member of UTSA's Neurosciences Institute. Midbrain dopamine neurons fire in two characteristic ...

Hunger hormone: Makes food more attractive

... value to objects in the world and to actions, and exert very powerful control over our behavior. They are all targets of addictive drugs (like cocaine and nicotine), and are also targets of feeding signals like ghrelin, explains Dr. Dagher. Participants in the study were shown images of food and ...

Your baby's brain on drugs (and alcohol and tobacco)

... to children with fetal alcohol syndrome, a diagnosis that was excluded in the current study. Although investigators initially set out to study cocaine exposure, they were struck by the finding of brain effects of prenatal tobacco exposure. Approximately 20 percent of women who smoke continue to ...

New X-ray technique targets terrorists and tumors

... The TEDDI method is highly applicable to biomaterials, with the possibility of specific tissue identification in humans or identifying explosives, cocaine or heroin in freight. It could also be used in aerospace engineering, to establish whether the alloys in a weld have too much strain. To develop ...

American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- Aug. 15, 2007

... breaking the law. Preliminary tests conducted in 10 U.S. cities show the method can simultaneously quantify methamphetamine and metabolites of cocaine and marijuana and legal drugs such as methadone, oxycodone, and ephedrine, the researchers said. Because our method can provide data in real time, ...

Prenatal cocaine's lasting cellular effects

... hysteria of the 1980s was greatly exaggerated, cocaine use during pregnancy can cause subtle but ... and Pat Levitt, Ph.D., report that prenatal cocaine exposure in rabbits causes a long lasting ... on the study. Incredibly high levels of cocaine -- usually coupled with the abuse of other drugs ...

Altered perception of reward in human cocaine addiction

... People addicted to cocaine have an impaired ability to perceive rewards and ... from $10 to $1000. More than half of the cocaine abusers rated $10 as equally valuable as $1000, ... -- for example, trading a car for a couple of cocaine hits. Without a relative context, drug use and ...

High-tech research shows cocaine changes proteins and brain function

... changes in brain function related to long-term cocaine use, said Scott E. Hemby, Ph.D., of Wake Forest ... tissue obtained from individuals who died of cocaine overdose and compared these "protein profiles" ... into the long-term effects and damage that cocaine has on the human brain and will help guide future ...

Genetically altered mice no longer like cocaine

... that they could eliminate the rewarding effect of cocaine on mice by genetically manipulating a key target ... ?is a prime target for developing drugs to fight cocaine addiction. "Cocaine blocks dopamine ... a person feel high," Gu said. "We found that cocaine would not produce a high if it could not block ...

High resolution 'snapshots' detail dynamics of a cocaine antibody

... shown some promise in their ability to neutralize cocaine toxicity, but their binding ability is severely ... Chemical Biology. Despite intensive research, cocaine abuse continues to be a major public health ... said, "Development of effective therapies for cocaine abuse has been a long-standing goal, and a number ...

Portable cocaine sensor developed at UC Santa Barbara

... A real-time sensor for detecting cocaine –?made with inexpensive, off-the-shelf ... and proteins in a way that is not specific to cocaine –?a whole class of biosensors can be based on ... the tip of the iceberg." Currently detecting cocaine (and other illegal and legal drugs) in bodily ...

New clue to cocaine addicts' quirky behavior

... to the impulsive behavior seen in users of cocaine as well as other psychostimulant drugs. The same ... studies, they sought to understand the effects of cocaine sensitization on the connections between two ... electrophysiological studies of the effects of cocaine on this circuitry demonstrated that the drug did ...

Potential Drug Target For Treating Cocaine Abuse Found

... disease blocks the stimulating effects of cocaine and could potentially be used to develop drug therapy for cocaine abuse, new research shows. In an article ... with cocaine. This effect wore off after a day. cocaine produces intense feelings of euphoria by ...

PET/MRI scans may help unravel mechanisms of prenatal drug damage

... the uptake and distribution of trace amounts of cocaine in pregnant monkeys and found significant ... magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to track cocaine pharmacokinetics down to the level of the ... the best of both worlds and allowed us to look at cocaine uptake and distribution in the mother and fetus ...

The influence of the menstrual cycle on the female brain

... (estrogen, progesterone). For example, female rats self-administer cocaine (a drug that acts on the dopamine system) in higher doses after estrogens ... an important role.) It is known, for example, that the female response to cocaine is greater in the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle4 than in the ...

Cocaine high caused by interference in neuronal receiving stations

... the receiving neuron to stimulation. Researchers had long known that cocaine affects both dopamine and glutamate receptors on neurons, but the ... unknown. In their experiments, Wang and colleagues first determined that cocaine reduces the activation of glutamate-responsive neurons by affecting a ...

Syphilis rate on rise in US gay, bisexual men

... to 2.1 cases per 100,000. Among other factors, public health officials think the rates dropped because fewer people were selling sex to get crack cocaine as the decade went by. However, the syphilis rate rose by 19 percent between 2000 and 2003. During that period, the rates among women ...

A valuable fly for research into disease

... the possible links between genes and behaviour caused by drug abuse and the mechanisms that regulate responses to psychostimulants such as alcohol, cocaine and nicotine. Drosophila is a key tool for studying certain aspects of cancer, and research into the development and proliferation of tumours will ...

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

... plays an important role in motivation and reward processes. Nicotine activates the dopamine system in the brain as do other drugs of abuse including cocaine and amphetamines. "Our work and that of others has shown that nicotine changes signaling in nerve cells in the dopamine system resulting in ...

Fruit fly study identifies gene mutation that regulates sensitivity to alcohol

... subsequently identified key differences in a particular gene associated with this behavior. The mutation also altered the flies' sensitivity to cocaine and nicotine as well. Because this gene variant affected the behavioral response to substances of abuse, the researchers dubbed it white rabbit--a ...

Scientists design simple dipstick test for cocaine, other drugs

... Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a simple "dipstick" test for detecting cocaine and other drugs in saliva, urine or blood serum. The test is based upon DNA-gold nanoparticle technology, and can be packaged in user-friendly kits ...

Hormone linked to brain's cravings for food and other energy sources

... because the major driving force of life is seeking energy to survive," he said. "Future studies will explore the relationships between ghrelin and cocaine addiction." ...

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

... between brain cells in a way that rewards a person or animal for one activity or another. More recently, research has shown that certain drugs like cocaine and heroin amplify this effect ?an action that may lie at the heart of drug addiction. Now, a new study from the University of Michigan adds a new ...

Chimpanzees can transmit cultural behavior to multiple 'generations'

... neuroscience, psychobiology and sensory-motor systems. Research programs are seeking ways to: develop vaccines for AIDS and malaria; treat cocaine addiction; interpret brain activity through imaging; increase understanding of progressive illnesses such as Parkinson's and Alzheimers; unlock the ...

'Perception' gene tracked humanity's evolution, scientists say

... in the gene. Past clinical studies have also indicated a positive correlation between lower prodynorphin levels in the brain and susceptibility to cocaine dependence. Matthew Rockman, David Goldstein and Gregory Wray (Duke University); Nicole Soranzo (University College London); and Fritz Zimprich ...

War on terror meets war on cancer

... coca plants were grown, while ratios of carbon-13 to carbon-12 revealed plants grown in humid versus drier climates. That let the DEA distinguish cocaine from Peru, Colombia, Bolivia or Ecuador. Similar analysis of carbon isotopes in heroin and chemicals used to process it made it possible to learn ...

Gene controlling circadian rhythms linked to drug addiction

... cocaine. Not only did the mice experience problems with their circadian cycles - not sleeping as much and becoming more hyperactive - they also found cocaine more rewarding than control mice, demonstrated by their strong preference for the location where the drug was administered. In addition, ...

Nicotine triggers the same brain reward circuitry as opiates

... response to nicotine. However, naloxone did not block the chamber choice of mice conditioned with cocaine, found the researchers, indicating that cocaine activates the brain reward pathway in a different way from nicotine and opiates. "The present results demonstrate that nicotine-associated ...