Susceptibility to Drug Addiction
The probable reason behind peoples’ susceptibility to drug addiction, identified by scientists from the universities of Bristol and Cambridge, may lead to more focused and fruitful treatments for addiction and other compulsive behavioural anomalies.
The findings published in one of the editions of Science, the world's leading journal of original scientific research, global news and commentary, reveal that these treatments, if successful, will have less harsher side effects on patients than the existing alternatives.
From time immemorial, certain chemical reactions in the brain have been associated with drug addiction in humans. The raging debate- whether these chemical changes are solely the reason behind peoples’ vulnerability to drug-addiction or if chronic drug use itself gives rise to these chemical changes- always persisted and modern researchers failed to crack the code.
Authors of the findings, Dr Emma Robinson from the University of Bristol and Dr. Jeff Dalley from the Cambridge Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute may have found the answer out. According to Dr. Robinson, the discovery may have important results for a range of addictive substances and can help us explore the reasons behind peoples’ predisposition to drug addiction.
Lead author of the paper, Dr. Dalley firmly believes that this medical breakthrough is a stepping stone to improved therapies for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and compulsive brain disorders such as drug addiction and pathological gambling.
Government statistics reveal a bleak reality- between 281,000 and 506,000 individuals are addicted to Class A drugs, including ecstasy, LSD, heroin, cocaine, crack, mushrooms and injectable amphetamines, in England and Wales alone.
According to campaigners, due to easy availability of heroine, the number of drug addicts has soared alarmingly in Scotland. As a result, drug addicts receiving prescriptions for methadone has risen by 35 per cent over the past five years over there.
Scientists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, are of the opinion that regions of brains that control satiety or pangs for food also control yearnings for drugs. They claim that they may be have unravelled ground-breaking treatments for obesity.
Lead researcher Dr Gene-Jack Wang brands eating as a “necessary addiction” for survival and believes that the connection between drug-addiction and overeating is not unnatural.
|
