A DRUG that might block cravings for drugs is being tested in recovering addicts after successful animal trials, Peter Kalivas of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston told a meeting of the Australian Neuroscience Society in Melbourne last month.
Most work on addiction focuses on the 鈥減leasure centre鈥� in the brain. This is what gets people hooked on drugs, but brain imaging suggests a pathway running from the frontal cortex to the pleasure centre triggers the cravings. 鈥淏y targeting the craving pathway you have a chance of selectively blocking that incredible desire that addicts have for the drug,鈥� says Kalivas.
When rats once hooked on cocaine are stressed or given a single shot of the drug, their interest normally revives. But rats injected with a substance called N-acetylcysteine, which blocks the release of a neurotransmitter in the craving pathway, do not relapse, Kalivas has found. An 鈥渁ntisense鈥� drug that blocks production of a protein called AGS3 involved in the craving pathway also prevents relapse in rats. Kalivas is now giving N-acetylcysteine pills to 20 recovering cocaine addicts in South Carolina to see if it helps people, too. If it does, it might also work for other drugs.
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