Cocaine dependence (or addiction) is physical and psychological dependency on the regular use of cocaine. It can result in severe physiological damage, psychosis, schizophrenia, lethargy, depression, or a potentially fatal overdose.
White matter in the brain that was previously implicated in animal studies has now been suggested to be specifically impaired in the brains of people with addiction to cocaine or heroin, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Baylor College of Medicine.
Price E. Dickson, Ph.D., an assistant professor of biomedical sciences at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, has received a $407,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the genetic and genomic mechanisms driving the relationship between social reward and cocaine addiction.
Researchers have found that blocking certain acetylcholine receptors in the lateral habenula (LHb), an area of the brain that balances reward and aversion, made it harder to resist seeking cocaine in a rat model of impulsive behavior.
Researchers with the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester are studying how the brain puts the 'brakes' on behavior. That may be different in individuals recovering from cocaine addiction and who are also HIV-positive.
Elevated levels of serotonin can prevent the development of compulsive cocaine seeking and addiction in mice, researchers report.
Contrary to common thinking, cocaine triggers an addiction only in 20% of the consumers. But what happens in their brains when they lose control of their consumption? Thanks to a recent experimental method, neuroscientists at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, have revealed a brain mechanism specific to cocaine, which has the particularity of triggering a massive increase in serotonin in addition to the increase in dopamine common to all drugs.
An emotion regulation strategy known as cognitive reappraisal helped reduce the typically heightened and habitual attention to drug-related cues and contexts in cocaine-addicted individuals, a study by Mount Sinai researchers has found.
Sleep deprivation may pave the way to cocaine addiction. Too-little sleep can increase the rewarding properties of cocaine, according to new research in mice published in eNeuro.
Cocaine addiction is a chronic disorder with a high rate of relapse for which no effective treatment is currently available.
Cocaine is a highly addictive drug - some people are unable to walk away from it after just one use. And once addicted, users can lose control of their lives.
A new study explains how cocaine modifies functions in the brain revealing a potential target for therapies aimed at treating cocaine addiction.
A pain pill prescription for nerve damage revived Gwendolyn Barton's long-dormant addiction last year, awakening fears she would slip back into smoking crack cocaine.
Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) are investigating if a medication used to regulate blood sugar can alter motivation to use alcohol by targeting the brain's stress response system.
The environmental context in which addicts experience the rewarding effects of cocaine can readily elicit cocaine-associated memories. These memories persist long after abstinence and trigger cocaine-craving and consumption.
Approximately 1.5 million Americans use cocaine in a given year, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Many are repeat users. Unfortunately, there are currently no FDA-approved medicinal treatments for cocaine addiction.
Researchers at The University of Texas at San Antonio have revealed significant insight into cocaine addiction, a phenomenon which has grown significantly in the United States since 2015.
A study in cocaine-addicted rats reports long-lasting increases in the number of neurons that produce orexin—a chemical messenger important for sleep and appetite—that may be at the root of the addiction.
Bile acids -- gut compounds that aid in the digestion of dietary fats -- reduce the desire for cocaine, according to a new study by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
A class of proteins that has generated significant interest for its potential to treat diseases, has for the first time, been shown to be effective in reducing relapse, or drug-seeking behaviors, in a preclinical study.
Exercise can help prevent relapses into cocaine addiction, according to new research led by the University at Buffalo's Panayotis (Peter) Thanos, PhD.