Getting rid of cocaine addiction

Getting rid of cocaine addiction

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University have discovered a previously unknown mechanism of cocaine's activity in the brain, which could open the door to developing new types of treatment for drug addiction, New Atlas reports, citing the journal PNAS.

Cocaine receptors in the brain

It is interesting that the discovered mechanism appears to function differently in male and female mice. Cocaine is known to interact with synapses in the brain, preventing neurons from getting dopamine, a chemical neurotransmitter associated with feelings of reward and pleasure. The buildup of dopamine in the synapses makes positive feelings last longer, trapping sympathizers into cocaine addiction.

Finding ways to block this mechanism has long been proposed as a potential treatment for cocaine use disorder, but it has been difficult to identify the specific receptors that the drug can target. A protein known as the dopamine transporter DAT was the most obvious candidate, but it turns out that cocaine binds to it relatively weakly, which means there are still receptors highly affinity for cocaine that have yet to be identified.

BASP1 receptor

To this end, the Johns Hopkins researchers experimented with mouse brain cells grown in a laboratory dish and exposed to cocaine. The cells were ground to be tested for specific molecules bound to small amounts of the drug - and a receptor called BASP1 turned up.

Then the team of researchers tweaked the genes of mice so that they contained only half the usual amount of BASP1 receptors in a region of their brains called the striatum, which plays a role in reward systems. When mice were given low doses of cocaine, absorption was reduced to about half the amount compared to normal mice. The researchers also suggest that the modified mice's behavior is about half the level of stimulation provided by cocaine, compared to normal mice.

Estrogen barrier

Solomon Snyder, a study co-author, said these findings suggest that BASP1 is the receptor responsible for cocaine's effects, implying that drug therapies that can mimic or block the BASP1 receptor may regulate responses to cocaine to get rid of addiction.

The researchers noted that the effect of eliminating BASP1 appears to only alter the response to cocaine in male mice, while females did not show any differences in behavior based on receptor levels, especially since BASP1 receptor binds to the female hormone estrogen, which can interfere with the mechanism, so the team plans More research and experiments to overcome this obstacle.

Researchers hope to find therapeutic drugs that can block cocaine binding to the BASP1 receptor, which could eventually lead to new treatments for cocaine use disorder.