New Research Suggests Brain Cells that Suppress Drug Cravings May Help Create Better Addiction Medicines

December 13, 2019 – – New research suggests that brain cells that suppress drug cravings can help lead to the development of better addiction medicines. Scientists have recently shed light on certain brain mechanisms that suppress drug and alcohol cravings. This led to some important new insights that can revolutionize addiction treatment.

Despite plentiful scientific knowledge surrounding the factors that trigger a relapse, there aren’t many effective medical solutions to the drug problem. This is what prompted Nobuyoshi Suto, Ph.D., of Scripps Research’s Department of Neuroscience to take research in a different direction.

Suto and his team explored how the brain responds to the environmental cues that suppress drug cravings, specifically for alcohol and cocaine: two of the largest classes of abused drugs.

The research is supported by grants from the National Institute of Health, particularly the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Their goal is to develop better medicines to treat addiction.

“Medications designed to counter brain processes that lead to relapse have seen limited success in patients, as have non-drug interventions such as cue-exposure therapy that seeks to help individuals deal with addiction triggers,” Suto said. “We believed an alternate strategy would be beneficial, so we sought to explore what happens in the brain in the absence of triggers when cravings are not driving behavior.”

The study focused on how nerve cells behaved in the brain’s infralimbic cortex. This region of the brain is believed to be responsible for impulse control. The scientists worked with male rats for their experiments. The rats were conditioned to be compulsive users of alcohol or cocaine.

Suto and his team wanted to know what happens in the brain when the rats received environmental cues that drugs were not available. In the case of this study, the scientist used a citrus scent to alert the rats that drugs were not available. The signals are referred to as “omission cues”.

During the experiment, the omission cues were successful at suppressing all of the main factors that promote drug relapse.

The research team then dug deeper to understand the underlying “anti-relapse” brain mechanisms. They used a laboratory technique designed to remove ambiguity about what role the neurons play in shaping behavior.

“Our results conclusively establish that certain neurons that respond to omission cues act together as an ensemble to suppress drug relapse,” Suto said.

Future research will build on these findings. “A medical breakthrough is needed in addiction treatment. Our hope is that further studies of such neural ensembles—as well as the brain chemicals, genes and proteins unique to these ensembles—may improve addiction medicine by identifying new druggable targets for relapse prevention.”

If someone in the family is struggling with drug or alcohol addiction, it is important to seek help. A combination of medical detox and behavioral therapy can go a long way in the fight against drug abuse. But because every individual is affected by addiction differently, a comprehensive program tailored to their specific needs is necessary. Look for a nearby addiction treatment facility today and find out how drug treatment programs work.

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