Dopamine medications may be the link to treat cocaine addiction, according to researchers at the University of Cambridge.Cocaine abuse has remained one of the epidemic problems in the United States. Still, when it comes to recovery, there is still no proven treatment for this drug addiction.
For many years, many scientists have dedicated their efforts in finding a solution to eradicate or reduce this drug problem. The only technique that may help illegal drug abuse is behavioral approaches such as counselling and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Dr. Karen Ersche, lead researcher at the Behavioral and Clinical Neuroscience Institute (BCNI) at the University of Cambridge, said that treating cocaine abuse is often problematic as most people always end up relapsing. She said that their study may serve as a hope to find a treatment to one of the widespread drug addiction problems in the country. In the study, researchers studied stimulant-dependent individuals and non-drug user volunteers to accomplish a learning task while their brains were scanned. After a while, the directions were changed, but they found that stimulant-dependent individuals reacted to the task with no difference despite the changes in the directions. “Their inflexible performance on the task resembles their drug-taking habits in as much as stimulant-dependent people do almost everything to take drugs even when there are negative consequences such as job loss, debts, or relationship breakups,” Dr. Ersche said. The scientists correlate the same response of the stimulant-dependent individuals to the decreased activation in the brain reward system. When the participants with cocaine addiction were given with dopamine medications, they were able to display different results. It was also found that the rain function was normalized. Prior to the new findings, the same research team has found that the part of the brain affected by the drug is a little bit bigger. They concluded that it may also be one of the reasons why they are more likely to suffer from the effects of cocaine abuse. Meanwhile, the National Institute on Drug Abuse is continuously seeking a way to find a treatment for cocaine addiction. Several studies have been launched, including vaccines that will prevent cocaine from transporting from the bloodstreams to the brain; medications that will reduce cocaine cravings; therapies that will help people recover from their addiction; and developing new emergency interventions to prevent cocaine overdose. The solution for cocaine addiction is still pending. Previous studies reported drawbacks on the anticonvulsant medications that were found. There have been side effects ranging from simple to life-threatening effects. These medications also have adverse interactions with other medicines. Some of the serious side effects include liver failure, suicidal thoughts, birth defects, blood abnormalities and many more.
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