What’s the News: Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute have now created a vaccine that prevents a heroin high in rats. The vaccine, detailed in a recent study in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, stimulates antibodies that can stop not only heroin but also its derivative psychoactive compounds from reaching the brain.
Posts Tagged ‘drugs & addiction’
Sugar Decreases the Havoc That Meth Wreaks on Fruit Flies
What’s the News: Anxiety. Insomnia. Hallucinations. Methamphetamine’s effects on the human brain are well documented, but researchers know relatively little about how the drug affects the body on the molecular scale. Looking at fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), scientists have detailed how meth disrupts chemical reactions associated with generating energy, creating sperm cells, and regulating muscles. Most interestingly, they discovered that meth-exposed fruit flies may live longer when they eat sugar. “We know that methamphetamine influences cellular processes associated with aging, it affects spermatogenesis, and it affects the heart,” says University of Illinois entomologist Barry Pittendrigh. “One could almost call meth a perfect storm toxin because it does so much damage to so many different tissues in the body.”
States and Feds Rush to Outlaw Drugs Sold as “Bath Salts”
Bath products never sounded so dangerous before. Two methamphetamine-like drugs that are being sold as mere “bath salts” have been linked to hallucinations and suicides, and lawmakers around the country are cracking down. Three states have already banned the substances, and this weekend Senator Charles Schumer announced that he’ll introduce a bill to outlaw the substances at the federal level.
“These so-called bath salts contain ingredients that are nothing more than legally sanctioned narcotics, and they are being sold cheaply to all comers, with no questions asked, at store counters around the country,” said Schumer, a New York Democrat. [Reuters]
The drugs, mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), can be snorted, injected, or smoked. They have no connection to real bath salts–the scented powders and crystals added to bath water for relaxation. The drugs are commercially labeled with such innocuous names as TranQuility, Blue Silk, and White Lightning, but authorities agree that the effects are anything but innocuous:
Psychotic reactions to snorting the “bath salts” reportedly led one woman to swing a machete at her 71-year-old mother in an attempt to behead her, Panama City Beach police said. Also, a man high on the brand Blue Silk tore up the backseat of a patrol car with his teeth after seven Bay County Sheriff’s Office deputies wrestled the crazed man into the cruiser, the agency said. [Los Angeles Times]
Musical Thrills Are Explained as a Rush of Dopamine to the Brain
Those delicious chills you get as your favorite piece of music reaches its climax? They’re the result of a glorious spike of dopamine in your brain–that’s the same neurotransmitter that’s involved in reward, motivation, and addiction.
In a nifty series of experiments published in Nature Neuroscience, researchers determined that music provokes floods of dopamine in music lovers. Study coauthor Valorie Salimpoor notes that dopamine has long been known to play a role in more physical activities like taking drugs and having sex, but this research highlights its role in other aspects of our lives.
“It is amazing that we can release dopamine in anticipation of something abstract, complex and not concrete,” Salimpoor said. “This is the first study to show that dopamine can be released in response to an aesthetic stimulus.” [Discovery News]
Cocaine Vaccine Could Stop Addiction in Its Tracks
By combining a cocaine analog with part of a common cold virus, researchers have created a “cocaine vaccine” that tricks the body into attacking the drug, neutralizing its high-giving powers. It has only been tested in mice so far, but the results are good:
“Our very dramatic data shows that we can protect mice against the effects of cocaine, and we think this approach could be very promising in fighting addiction in humans,” study researcher Ronald Crystal, a professor of genetic medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, said in a statement. [LiveScience]
The immune system doesn’t typically react to cocaine in the blood stream–it’s too small and doesn’t contain the “markers” of an invader. To get the white blood cells to notice it, the researchers strapped it to something the immune system can detect–the outside parts of the virus. The researchers took the outer shell from an adenovirus, which causes some types of the common cold, and removed the parts of the virus that cause illness. Then they linked that recognizable viral shell to a stable molecule similar to cocaine (they also tried it with cocaine itself, the researchers say, but the more-stable analog produced better results).
Drug Users Are Mining the Scientific Literature for “Legal Highs”
When it comes to recreational drugs, many assume that most of the dangerous compounds that people get high on are illegal. But drug makers, dealers, and users know better. They are mining the scientific literature for psychoactive drugs, making them in kitchen labs, and selling them to users on the street. And though this poses a real risk for users, it’s perfectly legal.
Purdue University chemist David Nichols says he’s haunted by the knowledge that his scientific research has led to unsafe–and sometimes even deadly–drug use.
“It’s not like you took a gun and shot somebody because then you would know you’d been responsible,” he told the BBC, “but people were taking something that you had published and I was alerting them that this might be an active molecule.” [BBC News]
In an editorial in Nature, Nichols discusses how compounds he has developed are being used as street drugs, with no regards to their safety. Nichols researches compounds for Parkinson’s and schizophrenia and has worked on developing serotonin-regulating analogs of MDMA (commonly known as ecstasy) for use in depression. One of these analogs (called MTA) became a big hit on the streets in the late 1990s.
Without my knowledge, MTA was synthesized by others and made into tablets called, appropriately enough, ‘flatliners’. Some people who took them died. Now, any knowledgeable person who had carefully read our papers might have realized the danger of ingesting MTA…. It really disturbs me that [these people] have so little regard for human safety and human life that the scant information we publish is used by them to push ahead and market a product designed for human consumption. [Nature]
2 New Ways to Kick Heroin: A High-Blocking Injection, a Long-Lasting Implant
Two new long-lasting options for treating opioid abuse could help heroin addicts avoid relapses.
The new drugs solve a problem with the current treatments for opioid addiction. These drugs, called methadone and buprenorphine, are really just replacement addictions, and their use needs to be closely monitored; patients take them daily at a clinic, because they can be abused by crushing up the pills and injecting them.
The first drug, which was just approved by the FDA, is called Vivitrol: The drug works by blocking the effect of opiates on brain cells, preventing the person from getting high. The effects of one injection last for a full month. In a clinical trial in Russia, 86 percent of people taking Vivitrol hadn’t relapsed after six months, while only 57 percent of placebo patients had stayed clean. However, researchers note that methadone isn’t available in Russia, and say it might be harder to convince addicts in the United States to opt for this treatment.
Vivitrol’s long-acting effect provides a kind of chemical willpower. “Someone who’s interested in not abusing opiates only has to make one good decision a month –- or their family member only has to help them make one good decision a month,”[Phil] Skolnick [of the National Institute on Drug Abuse] says. “That’s why it’s important.” [NPR].
Active Ingredient in “Magic Mushrooms” Could Help Cancer Patients
Hallucinogenic drugs are making a comeback–not among the restless youth of today, but among medical researchers. Doctors are increasingly testing illegal drugs like LSD, psychedelic mushrooms, and the party drug ketamine for beneficial effects, and are suggesting that these discredited drugs could have a place in modern medicine. The latest study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, found that the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms helped alleviate depression and anxiety in terminal cancer patients.
“This is a landmark study in many ways,” said Dr. Stephen Ross, clinical director of the Center of Excellence on Addiction at New York University‘s Langone Medical Center, who was not involved in the research. “This is the first time a paper like this has come out in a prestigious psychiatric journal in 40 years.” [Los Angeles Times]
The small pilot study included only a dozen volunteers, so the findings are far from conclusive. The volunteers ranged in age from 36 to 58; all had been diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer and had considerable anxiety as a result of their disease. Each patient had one session in which they were given psilocybin, the active ingredient of magic mushrooms, and another session when they were given a placebo that caused a physiological reaction–still, in most cases the patients could figure out if they’d been dosed or not. In all the sessions the patients were kept under supervision for six hours and were encouraged to lie in the dark while listening to music (no word from the researchers on whether Pink Floyd was provided).
Could Illegal Drugs Like Ketamine and LSD Become Serious Medicine?
Ketamine for bipolar disorder. LSD for depression. It’s been a busy month for psychedelic drugs in the laboratory, as several studies showed that these drugs typically used recreationally—and illegally—affect the brain in ways that could make them useful for treating mental illness.
First came a small study in the Archives of General Psychiatry that we covered earlier this month, in which scientists tested 18 patients who on average had tried seven kinds of drugs to treat their bipolar disorder. When the researchers gave them small doses of ketamine—a powerful anesthetic that people use recreationally for the hallucinogenic side effects—the patients’ depressive symptoms lessened within a matter of minutes.
Can a Party Drug Mitigate Bipolar Disorder’s Depression?
Recreational drug users call it “Special K.” Large, frequent doses of the anesthetic ketamine can give users vivid hallucinations, but a recently published study hints that the drug may have a medicinal use: temporarily treating depression brought on by bipolar disorder.
The small, proof-of-concept study appears in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry. National Institutes of Health researchers randomly gave 18 depressed patients ketamine or a placebo on two different days, two weeks apart. They used a much smaller dose of the drug than the amount used for recreation or anesthesia, but within 40 minutes 71 percent of the patients who received ketamine showed a significant improvement in mood, which lasted for three days, as measured using a psychiatric depression rating scale.
The quick response time is unusual for the drugs typically used to treat bipolar disorder’s depression, such as lithium or antidepressants like Prozac, and many of the study’s patients had failed to respond to other treatments. On average, the study participants had tried seven antidepressants and 55 percent of participants had failed to respond positively to the extreme measures of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)–seizures brought on by electrical current. Ketamine’s apparent success may have to do with the neurotransmitter, glutamate:
Legal, Synthetic Marijuana Pleases Pot-Heads, Upsets State Governments
Around the United States, state governments are rushing to enact bans on K2, the hot new (and still mostly legal) drug made with synthetic cannabinoids: lab-created compounds designed to mimic the effects of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.
Often marketed as incense, K2 — which is also known as Spice, Demon or Genie — is sold openly in gas stations, head shops and, of course, online. It can sell for as much as $40 per gram. The substance is banned in many European countries, but by marketing it as incense and clearly stating that it is not for human consumption, domestic sellers have managed to evade federal regulation [The New York Times].
Missouri is the most recent state to move against K2, the origin of which dates back to the work of Clemson University scientist John Huffman, who was developing these synthetic compounds in the 1990s. Scientifically, the chemicals are interesting for their potential to mimic some of the pain-relieving aspects of marijuana, which advocates of medical marijuana legality point to, without the negative health effects that come with setting a plant on fire and inhaling the smoke. The chemical used in most varieties of K2 is called JWH-018.
Huffman was interviewed by The Guardian last year when K2 was spreading around Europe. Now in his late 70s, he seems to understand something that many politicians can’t seem to get through their heads: Risk-taking teenagers will go to about any length, legal or illegal, to get high. Huffman says he wouldn’t oblige the numerous enterprising types who asked him how to make his substances, and that the substances are always labeled not for human consumption. But he figured someone was going to figure it out sooner or later, especially considering the chemical doesn’t show up on drug tests.
A Snail on Meth Remembers When You’ve Wronged It
Poke a snail with a stick and it remembers for a day. Poke a snail with a stick after you’ve given it methamphetamine and it remembers for much longer.
Getting gastropods hooked on meth perhaps sounds cruel, but Barbara Sorg and her team are among those scientists trying to figure out how the drug works in the brain to produce intense connections that feed the addiction cycle. In a study forthcoming in the Journal of Experimental Biology, the scientists show that, in snails at least, meth makes it hard to forget things that happened while on the drug.
Here’s the test: The snails Sorg studied can breathe two ways, through their skin underwater and also through a breathing tube they can deploy when they surface. The team kept two groups of snails—one on meth, one not—in separate tanks of shallow water. And if the snails tried to surface and breathe that way, the scientists would poke them.
Can the Human Body Make Its Own Morphine?
Who needs poppy plants to produce morphine? Last month scientists said they’d isolated the genes those plants use to synthesize the narcotic chemical and made it themselves in a lab. Now, in a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, another team has suggested that we mammals might possess the pathway to create our own morphine.
Because we have receptors for the opiate in our brains (which makes it such an effective and addictive painkiller), and because morphine traces show up in our urine, scientists had long wondered if animals could produce the drug themselves. But studies using living animals yielded inconclusive results because of possible contamination from external sources of morphine in their food or in the environment [Nature]. In addition, the body breaks down and changes morphine, which complicates the task.
Rats Fed on Bacon, Cheesecake, and Ding-Dongs Become Addicted to Junk Food
Do you often feel the need for a sweet sugar rush or a moment of bacon-induced bliss? A new study offers evidence that that surge of pleasure is similar to a heroin high, and that eating junk food regularly can significantly change the brain’s chemical make-up, creating junk food addicts who are driven to overeat.
Lead researcher Paul Kenny says it had previously been unclear whether extreme overeating was initiated by a chemical irregularity in the brain or if the behavior itself was changing the brain’s biochemical makeup. The new research by Kenny and his colleague Paul Johnson, a graduate student, shows that both conditions are possible [Scientific American].
For the study, published online in Nature Neuroscience, Kenny and colleagues headed to the grocery store. “We basically bought all of the stuff that people really like — Ding-Dongs, cheesecake, bacon, sausage, the stuff that you enjoy, but you really shouldn’t eat too often,” he said [Reuters]. One set of lab rats was allowed unfettered access to these high-calorie foods, while another rat group was allowed just one hour of access to the junk food per day. Both sets of rats also had the option of eating standard healthy lab rat fare. Finally, a control group of rats were kept on a healthy diet.
The Poppy’s Secret: Scientists Find the Genes That Make Morphine
For millennia, humans have used the codeine and morphine of the poppy plant as painkillers—or recreational drugs. For the last half-century, says Peter Facchini, biologists have tried to unlock just how the plant produces these powerful chemicals, and wound up frustrated. But now, in a study in Nature Chemical Biology, Facchini’s team says it has isolated the two genes that are the key to this process, which scientists could use to create some of medicine’s most valuable chemicals without the fields of poppy plants that give rise to the trade of illegal narcotics, especially heroin.
Both of the genes produced enzymes that helped to convert precursor chemicals. One, thebaine 6-O-demethylase (T60DM), had a role in the production of codeine. The other, codeine O-demethylase (CODM) transformed codeine into morphine [Press Association]. Lead author Jillian Hegel, Facchini’s grad student, studied four different poppy relatives and sifted through a library of 23,000 genes to find these two. She put these genes into E. coli bacteria that sat overnight in a flask with a chemical called thebaine that’s present in poppy seeds to see if the bacteria would synthesize the painkillers. “When she came back the next morning, the thebaine was all gone,” says Facchini. “That’s when her eyes got big…. Finding it all had been turned into morphine — that gives a grad student a great sense of power, when they can make morphine” [Science News].
