Why Is Alcohol Addictive? Study Offers Clues
Why Is Alcohol Addictive? Study Offers Clues
Research Could Lead to More Focused Medications for Heavy Drinkers
Although the nucleus accumbens has been previously associated with opioid regulation and reward processing, the involvement of the orbitofrontal cortex was unexpected, Mitchell and colleagues write.
Raymond F. Anton, MD, who directs the Center for Drug and Alcohol Programs at the Medical University of South Carolina, says it is likely that there are other, as-yet-unidentified regions of the brain associated with addiction.
“It is also likely that alcohol dependence is not one disease, but many, with many systems involved,” he says. “People drink for different reasons, so a treatment that works for one person may not work for another.”
Anton is conducting genetic research in hopes of discovering why naltrexone blunts alcohol cravings in some people but not others.
“We may be able to say in a few years if genetic predisposition can predict who will and will not respond to this drug,” Anton says.
Why Is Alcohol Addictive? Study Offers Clues
Research Could Lead to More Focused Medications for Heavy Drinkers
Alcoholism ‘Many Diseases’
Although the nucleus accumbens has been previously associated with opioid regulation and reward processing, the involvement of the orbitofrontal cortex was unexpected, Mitchell and colleagues write.
Raymond F. Anton, MD, who directs the Center for Drug and Alcohol Programs at the Medical University of South Carolina, says it is likely that there are other, as-yet-unidentified regions of the brain associated with addiction.
“It is also likely that alcohol dependence is not one disease, but many, with many systems involved,” he says. “People drink for different reasons, so a treatment that works for one person may not work for another.”
Anton is conducting genetic research in hopes of discovering why naltrexone blunts alcohol cravings in some people but not others.
“We may be able to say in a few years if genetic predisposition can predict who will and will not respond to this drug,” Anton says.
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