New Grant Funds Research to Repair Cocaine Damage

Funds from a five-year $10 million dollar research grant will be used to search for drugs that will be able to repair brain damage caused by cocaine addiction.

Cocaine abuse affects, among other neurotransmitters, serotonin, responsible for sleep, mood, appetite, and impulse control; and dopamine, which controls responses to rewards and decision-making. As time progresses and higher dosages of the drug are required to achieve a euphoric effect, the potential for permanent brain damage increases.

Currently, there are no approved medications to treat cocaine abuse. As one step to rectify this situation, the [U.S.] National Institute of Drug Abuse (Bethesda, MD, USA) has awarded a large research grant to the University of Texas Medical School (Houston, USA) to seek medications that will act on the serotonin and dopamine systems.

"We are looking at a drug that binds to the adenosine receptor,” said Dr. F. Gerard Moeller, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Texas Medical School. "This receptor gets physically attached to dopamine and controls the effect of the dopamine receptor. We will see if this helps with cognitive problems cocaine abusers have. Cocaine abusers make bad decisions because they respond to the short-term reward of taking the drug instead of long-term reward of something like keeping their jobs or their families. With chronic cocaine use, there are changes in the brain that affect neurotransmitters that are responsible for impulsivity and decision-making. If we can restore the balance of the neurotransmitters back to the way it was before the cocaine, then other therapies such as behavioral therapy will work better.”


Related Links:
National Institute of Drug Abuse
University of Texas Medical School