Cocaine addiction is treated by brain stimulation
Researchers from the University of Geneva discovered the possibility of getting rid of cocaine addiction by combining the use of a specific drug and influencing the brain with low-frequency electrical signals.
Swiss scientists dealt with nerve cells specialized in forming a feeling of pleasure, arousing laughter, and forming addiction, aggression, and terror. These are the cells that play the role of mediator between the parts of the brain responsible for planning and seeing the outside world on the one hand, and emotions on the other hand. The relationship of this mediator to drug addiction is due to the fact that it receives information from certain receptors.
Researchers from the University of Geneva tried to show the effect of cocaine on the connection points of nerve cell branches by stimulating brain cells that began to accept light after genetic modification, knowing that applying this method to humans is now impossible due to the necessity of radically changing the entire human body.
That’s why scientists started deep brain stimulation using electrical signals through electrodes implanted in the brain, a method that doctors use to treat Parkinson’s disease. At the same time, the researchers vaccinated their laboratory mice with SCH 23390, a drug that blocks the effect of the mediator. It should be noted that the aforementioned drug alone is unable to carry out the treatment, just like the electrodes if used without the drug.
The researchers hope to be allowed to conduct experiments on humans in hospital conditions soon.