A neuroscience research team that includes a Brown graduate student may have found a way to reduce the temptation to drink alcohol.
Jodi Gilman GS is part of a 15-person team that recently discovered a specific brain circuit that "shows promise as a new therapeutic target for alcoholism," according to a Feb. 26 press release from the National Institutes of Health.
Gilman is the second of 15 authors of a paper on alcoholism research, which was published on the Web site of the journal Science on Feb. 14.
Gilman conducted her research with a team at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a branch of the NIH. The NIAAA is a leader in reducing alcohol-related problems and studies the health risks and benefits of alcohol consumption, prevention and treatment, according to the NIAAA Web site.
The research identifies a brain molecule, neurokinin 1 receptor, or NK1R, as a fundamental player in stress-related alcohol consumption, according to the release.
"Alcoholics demonstrate exaggerated responses to negative stimuli and dampened responses to positive stimuli," Gilman said. Impeding the NK1 receptors with an experimental compound reversed these effects and "reduced alcohol craving and improved overall wellbeing among recently detoxified alcohol-dependent individuals who had high levels of anxiety," according to the press release.
Markus Heilig, chief of the Laboratory of Clinical Studies and clinical director in NIAAA's Division of Intramural Clinical and Biological Research, said that although the research is in its early stages, the implications are very promising.
Though Gilman said the findings of the research are "very preliminary," she was excited about how well the different parts of her lab worked together. She said the study is a "really good example of translational research," since each component of the lab - the pre-clinical studies, the randomized controlled experimental study and the functional magnetic resonance imaging responses - collaborated effectively.
Though Gilman's team will no longer be studying this drug, it will "take what we have learned from this to look at other drugs," she said.
Heilig said he was excited about the possibility for an entirely new approach to treating alcohol dependence.
"The next step is to show that the drug lowers drinking and temptations to drink in the real world," he said. If the drug can normalize responses to stimuli, it may be able to reduce the incentive to drink alcohol, he added.
