Health
The discovery of cocaine may pave the way for drug abuse treatment
You've probably heard of dopamine, also known as the “happiness hormone.”
Drugs like cocaine cause a surge of dopamine in the brain. Normally, a protein in the brain called the dopamine transporter (DAT) regulates dopamine levels, preventing the brain from perceiving any experience as pleasurable.
But under the influence of cocaine, the brain is no longer able to regulate dopamine levels. Until now, researchers didn't know how cocaine affected the various transporters in the brain, but a new study from the University of Copenhagen changes that.
“We found out how cocaine binds to the dopamine transporter, a protein responsible for regulating dopamine concentrations in the brain. What we did was to describe the structure of the dopamine transporter to gain molecular-level insight into how it is inhibited by cocaine,” says PhD student Jeppe Söderholm Nielsen, one of the leaders of the new study.
Without the brain's ability to regulate dopamine levels, everything we do seems wonderful, the researchers explain. Rather than increasing the brain's release of dopamine, cocaine inhibits the regulation and removal of dopamine.
“The reason we perceive something as pleasurable is because dopamine is released in the brain, stimulating the reward The role of the dopamine transporter is to stop this process by removing dopamine,” says Professor Klaus Roland, from the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Copenhagen, adding:
“When cocaine blocks the dopamine transporters, dopamine continues to stimulate the reward center, even though the experience itself is not particularly pleasant. In other words, we are no longer able to distinguish between what is truly pleasant and what is not, and every sensory input begins to feel wonderful. You could say that cocaine tricks the brain; it's a kind of chemical brainwashing.”
The World's Most Powerful Microscope Provides Answers
To understand how cocaine affects the brain, researchers studied the dopamine transporter, a tiny protein that is too small to study with a standard microscope.
“We used the world's most powerful microscope to study the atomic structure of the dopamine transporter. We can see how cocaine binds and inhibits its function, which is important if we want to stop cocaine from affecting the brain,” says Jeppe Söderholm Nielsen, adding:
“These proteins are so tiny that you can't see them under a microscope — even with this very powerful microscope — but we used some tricks to get around this and make them visible.”
I want to develop a treatment for drug abuse.
There is currently no cure for cocaine abuse, but in the long term, researchers hope to find treatments that can help people break their addiction.
“Our dream is to find a treatment for cocaine abuse. Although the overall number of drug addicts is decreasing, the number of people addicted to cocaine is increasing. Cocaine is one of the most addictive substances and it is becoming more and more affordable,” says Klaus Rolland.
The researchers hope that new knowledge about dopamine transporter function will contribute to our understanding of addiction in general.
“We will probably be able to treat not only cocaine but also a range of other addictions. For example, addiction to gambling and other substances is also caused by the release of dopamine in the brain,” says Klaus Rolland, adding:
“If we could develop a drug that would treat addiction in general, we could help a lot of people.”
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Sources 2/ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240807122905.htm The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article |
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