Tag Archives: julie kauer

Stress flips cocaine relapse to ‘on’; research switches it back to ‘off’

Even a single, brief stress can induce days of relapse to cocaine-seeking among rats, but a new study shows how the tendency to relapse persists and how to shut it down, suggesting a new pathway for developing addiction treatment medications. (more…)

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Study stops stress-based drug relapse in rats

In a new study in Neuron, scientists identified specific key steps in the chain of events that causes stress-related drug relapse. They identified the exact region of the brain where the events take place in rat models and showed that by blocking a step, they could prevent stress-related relapse.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — All too often, stress turns addiction recovery into relapse, but years of basic brain research have provided scientists with insight that might allow them develop a medicine to help. A new study in the journal Neuron pinpoints the neural basis for stress-related relapse in rat models to an unprecedented degree. The advance could accelerate progress toward a medicine that prevents stress from undermining addiction recovery. (more…)

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