Benefiting at work from Brain Based Insights

If you fight cravings like food… tobacco … or any number of things … you’ll be happy to see researchers are closer to helping the brain to avoid addictions. It’s just out that genetically altered mice no longer like cocaine….

Researchers  at Ohio State University found that they can eliminate the rewarding effect of cocaine on mice by genetically manipulating a key target of the drug in the animal's brain. They are not ready yet to say that these genetic modifications can help humans, but the work brings to light the key protein that controls cocaine's effects in the body, may help develop medications that achieve the same results for human addicts. What do you think?

Howard Gu, the study's lead author and associate professor of pharmacology and psychiatry at Ohio State University  showed how  dopamine transporter – a protein that moves the neurotransmitter dopamine from outside of a neuron into the inside of the cell – is the prime target for developing drugs to fight cocaine addiction.

When cocaine blocks dopamine transporters, a person feel high, and researchers found that cocaine would not produce a high if it could not block the transporters. They are looking to create drugs that prevent cocaine from binding to transporters, but that still allow the transporter protein to carry the dopamine back to the neuron so the high would be removed from the mental equation. What do you think… Are drugs the best way to prevent addictions, in your opinion…?