Search results for "Addiction"
showing 10 items of 415 documents
A high-quality homology model for the human dopamine transporter validated for drug design purposes.
2018
The human dopamine transporter (hDAT) plays many vital functions within the central nervous system and is thus targeted by many pharmaceutical agents. Dopamine-related therapies are in current development for individuals with dopamine-related disorders including depression, Parkinson's disease, and psychostimulant addictions such as cocaine abuse. Yet, most efforts to develop new dopamine therapies are within costly structure-activity relationship studies. Through structure-based drug design techniques, the binding site of hDAT can be utilized to develop novel selective and potent dopamine therapies at reduced costs. However, no structural models of hDAT specifically validated for rational …
Common Neural Mechanisms of Palatable Food Intake and Drug Abuse: Knowledge Obtained with Animal Models
2019
Eating is necessary for survival, but it is also one of the great pleasures enjoyed by human beings. Research to date shows that palatable food can be rewarding in a similar way to drugs of abuse, indicating considerable comorbidity between eating disorders and substance-use disorders. Analysis of the common characteristics of both types of disorder has led to a new wave of studies proposing a Gateway Theory of food as a vulnerability factor that modulates the development of drug addiction. The homeostatic and hedonic mechanisms of feeding overlap with some of the mechanisms implicated in drug abuse and their interaction plays a crucial role in the development of drug addiction. Studies in…
Preclinical evidence of new opioid modulators for the treatment of addiction.
2010
Addiction to opiates is one of the most severe forms of substance dependence, and despite a variety of pharmacological approaches to treat it, relapse is observed in a high percentage of subjects. New pharmacological compounds are necessary to improve the outcome of treatments and reduce adverse side effects. Moreover, drugs that act on the opioid system can also be of benefit in the treatment of alcohol or cocaine addiction. AREA COVERED BY THIS REVIEW: Recent preclinical studies of pharmacological agents for the treatment of opiate addiction (2008 to the present date).The reader will be informed of the latest drugs shown in animal models to modify dependence on opiates and the reinforcing…
Learning to be a psychostimulants addict with self-regulation therapy
2018
This article presents the results of a single-case experiment of alternative treatments in which a participant applied the Self-Regulation Therapy (SRT) to reproduce the effects of a stimulant drug, methylphenidate, and a sedative, alcohol. The SRT is a learning procedure based on classic conditioning and suggestion that reproduces the effect of drugs by remembering the effects they have. The participant reproduced the effects of both drugs during ten sessions held on 5 consecutive days. To record effects, adjective scales were used that measured Drug effect, High, Rush, Energy, Tension and the General Factor of Personality (GFP). The results indicated that the participant was capable of in…
Neurobiological mechanisms of the reinstatement of drug-conditioned place preference.
2009
Drug addiction is a chronic disorder characterized by a high rate of relapse following detoxification. There are two main versions of the reinstatement model that are employed to study relapse to drug abuse; one based on the operant self-administration procedure, and the other on the classical conditioned place preference procedure. In the last seven years, the use of the latter version has become more widespread, and the results obtained complement those obtained in self-administration studies. It has been observed that the conditioned place preference induced by opioids, psychostimulants, nicotine, ethanol and other drugs of abuse can be extinguished and reinstated by drug priming or expo…
Pharmacology of Acamprosate: An Overview
2003
In the last years important advances have been made in the development of drugs for the treatment of alcohol addiction. Acamprosate (calcium bis‐acetylhomotaurine) is one of the better established drugs in this field on the European market. This review focuses first on the pharmacokinetics of acamprosate. The published data and the recent advances in our knowledge on the mechanisms involved in the intestinal absorption and elimination of this drug are summarized. The importance of pharmacokinetics for the proper clinical use of acamprosate is highlighted. The anti‐relapse as well as the well‐known effects of acamprosate on ethanol intake are discussed. The recent experiments in animal model…
Rhodiola rosea Impairs Acquisition and Expression of Conditioned Place Preference Induced by Cocaine
2013
A novel approach to the treatment of adverse effects of drugs of abuse is one which makes use of natural products. The present study investigated the effect ofRhodiola roseaL. hydroalcoholic extract (RHO) on cocaine-induced hyperactivity and conditioned place preference (CPP) in mice. In a first experiment, mice received RHO (15, 20 or 25 mg/kg, IG), cocaine (25 mg/kg, i.p.) (COC), or a combination of both drugs (COC + RHO15, COC + RHO20, and COC + RHO25), and their locomotor activity was evaluated. In a second experiment, the effects of RHO on the acquisition, expression, and reinstatement of cocaine CPP (induced by drug priming or social defeat stress) were evaluated. RHO alone did not in…
Role of Levo-tetrahydropalmatine and its metabolites for management of chronic pain and opioid use disorders.
2021
Abstract Background Opioids have been prescribed to reduce suffering from pain and to enhance quality of life. Due to the addictive potential and the lack of other effective alternatives to treat severe acute and chronic pains, opioids remain a serious public health issue. While, opioids directly influence the drug-seeking behavior, tolerance and withdrawal processes, through neuroadaptation, the brain's endogenous opioid system also adapts in the presence of chronic pain and could contribute to the difficulty of treatment. Despite the seemingly obvious interaction between the presence of pain and opioid-abuse, little is known about the underlying mechanisms in the brain. Purpose To review …
Pre-Clinical Studies with D-Penicillamine as a Novel Pharmacological Strategy to Treat Alcoholism: Updated Evidences
2017
Ethanol, as other drugs of abuse, is able to activate the ventral tegmental area dopamine (VTA-DA) neurons leading to positively motivational alcohol-seeking behavior and use, and, ultimately to ethanol addiction. In the last decades, the involvement of brain-derived acetaldehyde (ACD) in the ethanol actions in the mesolimbic pathway has been widely demonstrated. Consistent published results have provided a mechanistic support to the use of ACD inactivating agents to block the motivational and reinforcing properties of ethanol. Hence, in the last years, several pre-clinical studies have been performed in order to analyze the effects of the sequestering ACD agents in the prevention of ethano…
The control of abstinence in the treatment of alcohol dependence: the use of acamprosate in relapse prevention
2014
"The alcoholism can also deal with drug treatments." This is the message that emerges from the press conference of presentation of Campral, trade name of acamprosate, a neuromodulator specifically indicated in the maintenance of abstinence in alcohol-dependent patients.Alcoholism is a disease characterized by: craving, loss of control, tolerance and physical dependence.For many years the prevention of relapse in use of alcohol after detoxification was supported almost exclusively by psychosocial procedures and techniques with modest success. Treatment with acamprosate is a valid tool to complement psychotherapy as it does not cause addiction, abuse or withdrawal of its suspension and does n…