Treating cocaine addiction by reducing our appetite for drugs?
"The more that we learn about the brain, the more that we learn that brain signaling mechanisms that play a particular defined function, such as a role in wakefulness or appetite, often play important roles in other functions, such as addiction," said professor John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry . HCRT signaling has been implicated in stress and high-arousal conditions, linking it to cocaine's strong arousal-inducing effects and stress-induced relapse of drug seeking. To better understand how the HCRT system contributes cocaine addiction, Schmeichel, along with colleagues at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, provided rats with short (1 hour) or long (6 hours) access to cocaine, which the rats could self-administer through an IV by pressing a lever. Long access to the drug induces compulsive-like cocaine seeking behavior in the rats, in contrast to more stable use by rats provided short access. Blocking hypocretin signaling throughout ...