New therapy may help fight addiction

New York, July 1: Researchers have developed a treatment that could help reverse the chemical imbalances caused to the brain by habitual use of drugs. day help recover addicts avoid future drug use.

In tests on rats, the new treatment was effective in reducing animal cravings, according to the results published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

When someone usually abuses drugs, his brain chemistry is changed to make it harder to stop taking drugs despite negative consequences.

Once someone has developed this brain disorder, his mind pays more attention to the signals that encourage the use of drugs, which makes it more difficult to abstain [19659004] Serotonin, a brain chemical that transmits information between neural regions. in these changes.

Researchers have found that 2C serotonin receptors in addicts do not work as well as they should.

The team led by researchers from the Medical Department of the University of Texas at Galveston in the United States has designed, synthesized and pharmacologically evaluated a series of small therapeutic molecules intended to restore impaired signaling.

help reverse the chemical imbalances caused to the brain by the usual use of drugs.

In their experiment, the researchers trained rats to press a lever for cocaine infusions at certain light signals.

Once the rats learned of this cocaine-seeking behavior, half of them received the most promising therapeutic treatment and the other half received only saline

. more than the control animals treated with saline, even when they are reinforced with the light signals badociated with cocaine.

"We are the first to show that a therapeutic 2C serotonin receptor of this type can be used successfully to decrease behavior," said Kathryn Cunningham, director of the Center for Addiction Research at the Division. Medical University of Texas at Galveston. "Our discoveries are particularly exciting because in addition to helping people one day recover from addiction, the impaired functioning of the 2C serotonin receptor would also contribute to other chronic health problems like depression, impulsivity disorders, obesity and schizophrenia, "added Cunningham.