American Researchers End Drug-Seeking Behavior in Rats

April 26, 2013

A Colombian police officer walks near packs of confiscated marijuana and cocaine.

From VOA Learning English, this is Science In The News. I’m Mario Ritter.

And I’m Jeri Watson. Today we tell about an experimental way to cure drug dependency in rats. We also tell about a health threat to one third of all adults. We have a report on a gene that controls the ability of the heart to repair itself. And we report on a competition for researchers with expertise in neurobiology.

Drug addiction might be cured with a simple treatment to awaken a part of the brain of the addict – the person who has grown dependent on the drug. Recently, researchers reported they were able to end drug-seeking behavior in rats addicted to cocaine. They said they did this with laser light by activating a part of the animals’ brains known as the prefrontal cortex.

Cocaine is used widely as a drug. It comes from a substance, an alkaloid, in the coca plant. For several weeks, the researchers gave the drug to a group of rats. The animals quickly became dependent on cocaine.

For four days, the rats received a mild but unpleasant electric shock to a foot when they attempted to get more cocaine.

Antonello Bonci is scientific director at the United States National Institute on Drug Abuse. He was involved in the study. He says that after the shocks, 70 percent of the rats stopped looking for more cocaine. But the remaining 30 percent continued to show an addictive hunger for the drug.