New research provides exciting insight into the molecular mechanisms associated with addiction and relapse. The study, published by Cell Press in the March 11 issue of the journal Neuron, uncovers a crucial mechanism that facilitates motivation for alcohol after extended abstinence and opens new avenues for potential therapeutic intervention. read more

"Animal paradigms can model crucial aspects of human addiction, and these paradigms will help elucidate the molecular and cellular mechanisms that drive drug-seeking behaviors and, as a consequence, facilitate the development of novel therapeutic interventions for addiction," explains lead study author Dr. F. Woodward Hopf from the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco.
"Our findings are particularly exciting because the FDA-approved drug chlorzoxazone, which has been used for more than 30 years as a muscle relaxant, can activate SK channels," says Dr. Antonello Bonci, a senior author on the project. "Although SK channels are not the only target of this drug and it can present a variety of clinical side effects, it provides an unexpected and very exciting opportunity to design human clinical trials to examine whether chlorzoxazone, or other SK activators, reduce excessive or pathological alcohol drinking."