MUSC launches first meth addiction
center
by Mary
Helen YarboroughPublic Relations
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded MUSC a $3-million grant for the nation’s first Translational Research in Addiction Center (TRAC), which will focus on the clinical neurobiology of methamphetamine dependence.
MUSC’s TRAC was ranked the first in a nationwide competitive program initiated by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The initiative is part of the larger goal of the NIH to develop research centers that can bridge the gap between basic preclinical science and clinical research. The MUSC TRAC will be recruiting methamphetamine-dependent individuals from the Lowcountry area to participate in the study. Most of the participants will be referrals, according to TRAC director Ronald See, Ph.D., of MUSC’s Department of Neurosciences.
Methamphetamine abuse and dependence has rapidly become a major health problem throughout the United States, while basic and clinical understanding of the neurobiology and treatment of methamphetamine addiction has lagged behind research on other abused drugs.
Drs. Ronald See,
left, and Peter Kalivas stand in front of a hand-scrawled formula used
to understand methamphetamine addiction.The TRAC, the first such program like it in the nation, will be directed by See along with co-investigators Peter Kalivas, Ph.D., chairman of the department of Neurosciences, and Robert Malcolm, M.D., and Kathleen Brady, M.D., Ph.D., of MUSC’s Department of Psychiatry.
The TRAC will be funded by the NIH grant over the next four years. During this time, the investigators will develop integrated, multidisciplinary teams to explore the neural pathways, cognitive and behavioral dysfunctions, and potential treatments for methamphetamine addiction.
The TRAC will employ an animal model of relapse in conjunction with a clinical laboratory and brain imaging center in an innovative collaboration designed to directly test hypotheses derived from the animal model in human subjects. In turn, information derived from methamphetamine-dependent subjects in the clinical laboratory will inform and guide new directions in the animal model.
Importantly, neurobiological information gained from the projects will be used to develop novel therapies that may be effective in treating methamphetamine addiction and reducing the individual and public health consequences of this devastating illness.
Testing medications for addiction
Certain medications that will be tested on meth addiction have been previously used to treat other disorders. For example, Abilify, a drug used to treat schizophrenia, may be useful in treating cocaine addiction. By stabilizing levels of brain dopamine as opposed to completely shutting them down, its use is less objectionable to patients. Researchers hope that it will help quell relapse tendencies in meth addiction, as well.
“In studying cocaine self-administration using rats, we learned the drug blocked their relapse to cocaine-seeking,” See said. He added that studies in the TRAC will focus on physiological and behavioral changes in rats at all points of meth use, including relapse. While there are similarities between addiction to meth, alcohol and heroin, the power that meth addiction holds over the individual is the extended length of time the high lasts and the depths to which the person sinks during the let-down. These dynamics fuel the desire for more meth. “But we don’t know how different [the addiction] is from cocaine,” Kalivas said. “There may be different things happening. We do know that there are more cognitive deficits involved with meth. Even the brain circuitry may be differentially altered in meth addicts.”
Kalivas said much of the project will focus on activity in the frontal cortex, the part of the brain critically involved in decision making. Neuroscience research has determined that the frontal cortex plays a significant role in addiction, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as well as all other cognitive functions. Interestingly, the frontal cortex does not fully develop in humans until their early 20s. This slow development is paralleled by the period of greatest vulnerability to addiction between the ages of 14 and 25.
The TRAC will have multiple components. The first consists of using animal models of relapse and cognitive deficits produced by meth. These studies will examine what happens in the pre-frontal neurocircuitry in relationship to relapse and cognitive function.
Secondly, a clinical component led by Brady and Malcolm will focus on human participants during the same time that the basic studies are conducted. A virtual reality cue system will be developed to test the reactivity of meth addicts to drug-paired cues that are associated with periods of drug use. Measures of craving and physiological arousal will be determined during cue reactivity, as well as assessment of cognitive performance. In addition, brain imaging techniques will assess dynamic changes in brain function during cue exposure.
Finally, a major goal of the TRAC will be the assessment of compounds that may simultaneously improve cognitive performance and blunt craving for meth in both the animal model and in humans.
“Although the TRAC is not a treatment study, per se, it will utilize compounds to improve addicts’ ability to not think of the drug,” Kalivas said. “MUSC is unique in that it has a team of investigators that bridge the gap from basic research to clinical trials. Who can best move stuff from the bench to the bedside? That is what we are doing here at MUSC.”
For information about MUSC’s Department of Neurosciences, visit http://neurosciences.musc.edu/.
Friday, Nov. 10, 2006
Catalyst Online is published weekly,
updated
as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public
Relations
for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of
South
Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at
792-4107
or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to
Catalyst
Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to
catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island
Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.