The Neuroscience Of Cocaine

The Neuroscience of Cocaine: Mechanisms and Treatment explores the complex effects of this drug, addressing the neurobiology behind cocaine use and the psychosocial and behavioral factors that impact cocaine use and abuse. This book provides researchers with an up-to-date understanding of the mechanisms behind cocaine use, and aids them in deriving new pharmacological compounds and therapeutic regimens to treat dependency and withdrawal symptoms. Cocaine is one of the most highly abused illicit drugs worldwide and is frequently associated with other forms of drug addiction and misuse, but researchers are still struggling to understand cocaine’s neuropharmacological profile and the mechanisms of its effects and manifestations at the cognitive level. Cessation of cocaine use can lead to numerous adverse withdrawal conditions, from the cellular and molecular level to the behavioral level of the individual user. Written by worldwide experts in cocaine addiction, this book assists neuroscientists and other addiction researchers in unraveling the many complex facets of cocaine use and abuse. Contains in each chapter an abstract, key facts, mini dictionary of terms, and summary points to aid in understanding Illustrated in full color Provides unique full coverage of all aspects of cocaine and its related pathology Provides researchers with an up-to-date understanding of the mechanisms behind cocaine use, and aids them in deriving new pharmacological compounds and therapeutic regimens to treat dependency and withdrawal symptoms

With the use of crack on the rise in American cities, there is more need than ever to understand the biological, environmental, and social factors behind cocaine addiction, as well as the pharmacological properties of cocaine that make it such an addictive drug. The Neurobiology of Cocaine Addiction helps clinicians and researchers analyze research findings and their relevance to the clinical treatment of cocaine dependency. To do this, it looks at the whole spectrum of cocaine use, from trends in cocaine-involved deaths, hospital emergencies, arrests, and treatment admissions to the specific impact the drug has on brain function. The book reports on important findings from positron emission tomography (PET) and a “binge” pattern cocaine administration mode. This will enable you to improve your understanding of how cocaine alters the pleasure/reward system of the brain and creates new instinctual needs that displace the inherent instinctual needs of hunger and sex. By reading The Neurobiology of Cocaine Addiction, you will sharpen your knowledge of the basic actions of cocaine, the factors related to daily cocaine use, the neurobiological basis of addictive diseases, and drug-induced alterations in normal physiology. You will also learn about: the coexistence of cocaine and heroin addiction cocaine’s disruption of the endogenous opioid system QEEG and how it can play a potentially useful role in drug development and planning hypotheses of sensitization in the pathophysiology of cocaine dependence factors that predict daily cocaine use among patients in a methadone maintenance program abnormalities in brain function that persist for up to six months after last cocaine use patterns of cocaine use the importance of prospective data analysis and the limitations of a self-selective study group Clinicians, researchers, psychiatrists, and other professionals in chemical dependency and narcotics rehabilitation will turn the last page of The Neurobiology of Cocaine Addiction with a better understanding of cocaine’s addictive qualities and the characteristics of the individuals who become addicted to it. You will see what headway has been made in research at some of the nation’s top laboratories, but you will also see what remains to be done. Hopefully, you will find where you can make a contribution either at the practical level, the research level, or both.

Abstract: In discussing the consequences of cocaine use on individuals and society, this volume presents up-to-date research on brain mechanisms of cocaine use including the historical/social and psychological perspectives. The publication assists readers in comprehending the cocaine problem from multiple perspectives, beginning with the neural mechanisms of craving and leading to new approaches to developing effective diagnostic, treatment, and prevention programs. Topics include: populations at risk for cocaine use and subsequent consequences, synaptic effects and adaptations of cocaine, imaging techniques in the investigation of the effects of cocaine in the brain, and medical, endocrinological, and pharmacological aspects of cocaine addiction.

Representing the latest data from active research groups, The Neurobiology of Cocaine is designed to educate students and inform experts in a rapidly changing field. This volume presents current research regarding the mechanisms of cocaine's action in the brain. Recent developments of cellular, molecular, and brain imaging methods provide new evidence that chemical and molecular substrates underlie cocaine reinforcement, dependence, and withdrawal. This book explores the biological bases of such effects, describing the brain circuits affected by cocaine, neuroendocrine and neurophysiological actions of cocaine, neurochemistry and pharmacology of cocaine, and cocaine effects on signal transduction, gene expression, and protein phosphorylation. This up-to-date text also describes the recently cloned class of neurotransporters affected by cocaine and characterizes their interaction with the drug. These reports focus on the effects of chronic exposure and subsequent withdrawal, which are differentiated from acute cocaine actions. Thus, they provide information on brain mechanisms likely active during long-term use and abuse in humans. Such commonalities are illustrated by a discussion of cocaine action in the human brain as visualized by positron emission tomography. This volume is a must for anyone interested in the mechanisms underlying cocaine abuse.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From a renowned behavioral neuroscientist and recovering addict, a rare page-turning work of science that draws on personal insights to reveal how drugs work, the dangerous hold they can take on the brain, and the surprising way to combat today's epidemic of addiction. Judith Grisel was a daily drug user and college dropout when she began to consider that her addiction might have a cure, one that she herself could perhaps discover by studying the brain. Now, after twenty-five years as a neuroscientist, she shares what she and other scientists have learned about addiction, enriched by captivating glimpses of her personal journey. In Never Enough, Grisel reveals the unfortunate bottom line of all regular drug use: there is no such thing as a free lunch. All drugs act on the brain in a way that diminishes their enjoyable effects and creates unpleasant ones with repeated use. Yet they have their appeal, and Grisel draws on anecdotes both comic and tragic from her own days of using as she limns the science behind the love of various drugs, from marijuana to alcohol, opiates to psychedelics, speed to spice. With more than one in five people over the age of fourteen addicted, drug abuse has been called the most formidable health problem worldwide, and Grisel delves with compassion into the science of this scourge. She points to what is different about the brains of addicts even before they first pick up a drink or drug, highlights the changes that take place in the brain and behavior as a result of chronic using, and shares the surprising hidden gifts of personality that addiction can expose. She describes what drove her to addiction, what helped her recover, and her belief that a “cure” for addiction will not be found in our individual brains but in the way we interact with our communities. Set apart by its color, candor, and bell-clear writing, Never Enough is a revelatory look at the roles drugs play in all of our lives and offers crucial new insight into how we can solve the epidemic of abuse.

Using the most well-studied behavioral analyses of animal subjects to promote a better understanding of the effects of disease and the effects of new therapeutic treatments on human cognition, Methods of Behavior Analysis in Neuroscience provides a reference manual for molecular and cellular research scientists in both academia and the pharmaceutic

Drug addiction is a chronically relapsing mental illness involving severe motivational disturbances and loss of behavioral control leading to personal dev- tation. The disorder af?icts millions of people, often co-occurring with other mental illnesses with enormous social and economic costs to society. Several decades of research have established that drugs of abuse hijack the brain’s natural reward substrates, and that chronic drug use causes aberrant alterations in these rewa- processing systems. Such aberrations may be demonstrated at the cellular, neu- transmitter, and regional levels of information processing using either animal models or neuroimaging in humans following chronic drug exposure. Behaviorally, these neural aberrations manifest as exaggerated, altered or dysfunctional expr- sion of learned behavioral responses related to the pursuit of drug rewards, or to environmental factors that precipitate craving and relapse during periods of drug withdrawal. Current research efforts are aimed at understanding the associative and causal relationships between these neurobiological and behavioral events, such that treatment options will ultimately employ therapeutic amelioration of neural de?cits and restoration of normal brain processing to promote efforts to abstain from further drug use. The Behavioral Neuroscience of Drug Addiction, part of the Springer series on Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences, contains scholarly reviews by noted experts on multiple topics from both basic and clinical neuroscience ?elds.

Neurobiology of Addiction is conceived as a current survey and synthesis of the most important findings in our understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms of addiction over the past 50 years. The book includes a scholarly introduction, thorough descriptions of animal models of addiction, and separate chapters on the neurobiological mechanisms of addiction for psychostimulants, opioids, alcohol, nicotine and cannabinoids. Key information is provided about the history, sources, and pharmacokinetics and psychopathology of addiction of each drug class, as well as the behavioral and neurobiological mechanism of action for each drug class at the molecular, cellular and neurocircuitry level of analysis. A chapter on neuroimaging and drug addiction provides a synthesis of exciting new data from neuroimaging in human addicts — a unique perspective unavailable from animal studies. The final chapters explore theories of addiction at the neurobiological and neuroadaptational level both from a historical and integrative perspective. The book incorporates diverse finding with an emphasis on integration and synthesis rather than discrepancies or differences in the literature. · Presents a unique perspective on addiction that emphasizes molecular, cellular and neurocircuitry changes in the transition to addiction · Synthesizes diverse findings on the neurobiology of addiction to provide a heuristic framework for future work · Features extensive documentation through numerous original figures and tables that that will be useful for understanding and teaching