Study Looks to Disrupt Addiction

The National Institute on Drug Abuse has awarded the University at Buffalo a grant to conduct research that could provide an answer to why cocaine addicts relapse after months or years of abstinence. The research has the potential to identify novel therapies for treating cocaine addiction and other psychostimulants. The five-year grant focuses on the short- and long-term neurobiological changes in the brain that are induced by addiction. An addict’s brain undergoes dramatic and profound changes while being exposed to cocaine, known as neuroplasticity. The plasticity, includes cellular changes that, in turn, control changes in the shape of neurons and the number of connections they have with other neurons, ultimately causing changes in the addict’s behavior. “The question is, how can we interfere with those changes?” asks the study’s investigators. “How can we either prevent the rewiring in the addicted state or somehow reverse it?” A key component of the grant is the ability to understand how the brain changes at different time points following abstinence from drugs. To read more about this study, click here.