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An effective treatment for cocaine addiction has been found
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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A combination of two existing drugs may be an effective treatment for cocaine addiction. The therapy reduces cravings for the drug and alleviates withdrawal symptoms. These are the findings of a study by scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in California, USA, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Treatment methods for drug addicts have changed over the past decades. Scientists now have a better understanding of the changes that occur in the brain under the influence of drugs. Modern drugs for the treatment of drug addiction should minimize these long-term effects. Until now, scientists have repeatedly tried to create a drug for the treatment of cocaine addiction, but the drugs have proven ineffective for people. According to researcher Professor George Koob, in this case, a combination of two drugs could become a fundamentally new method of effective therapy. The combination proposed by the researchers includes naltrexone and buprenorphine. This choice is due to the mechanism of action of cocaine.
Once in the blood, cocaine is transported to the brain, where it accumulates in areas responsible for the feeling of pleasure. Here, cocaine molecules bind to dopamine transporters and block its reuptake. As a result, dopamine accumulates, which causes a person to feel euphoria. In response to this, the brain increases the formation of the neuropeptide dynorphin, which normalizes the amount of dopamine and reduces euphoria. Each use of cocaine increasingly disrupts this regulatory mechanism, and each time it becomes more difficult to achieve a feeling of euphoria, so the dose of the drug begins to increase. If the drug stops entering the body, severe withdrawal symptoms begin due to excessive activation of the system that suppresses the feeling of pleasure.
Naltrexone is an FDA-approved drug for the treatment of alcoholism and nicotine addiction. Buprenorphine is an opioid analgesic similar in action to morphine and heroin. It is used to treat heroin addiction because it normalizes the secretion of dopamine and dynorphin, but its use often leads to the formation of addiction. However, the combination of buprenorphine with low doses of naltrexone does not lead to the formation of opioid addiction.
The combination of drugs showed promising results in rat experiments. The next step is clinical trials involving humans. If the efficacy in humans is confirmed, the method will be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as the first officially approved treatment for cocaine addiction. The problem is extremely widespread in the United States. As of 2008, 1.9 million Americans regularly use cocaine. About a quarter of all emergency hospital admissions in America are related to cocaine overdoses.
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