Coins DIG

A federal grant of $2.2 million was contributed to the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy for creating therapeutics able to suppress the desires of cocaine addicts.

The professor of medicinal chemistry and pharmacognosy, Alan Kozikowski, leads a research team that will work on targeting a particular family of serotonin receptors found in the brain. The so-called 5-HT2 receptors play an important role in managing one's cravings to drug use.

According to Kozikowski, mostly the field that deals with making researches on cocaine medications was dominated by why some call "dopamine hypothesis," which stated that cocaine blocked the re-uptake of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

"The higher levels of dopamine present in the cleft between neighboring neurons leads to cocaine's high," outlined Kozikowski. "This has led to years of work on the discovery of compounds that might displace cocaine from its binding site on the dopamine transporter, while still allowing dopamine to be taken up through the transporter," he added.

Now scientists focus on a new target, which is a broad group of receptors binding serotonin, dubbed 5-HT, which is short for 5-hydroxytryptamine. The 5-HT is a neurotransmitter that is responsible for controlling various behaviors, such as anger, sleep, attention, sexuality and appetite. Certain health problems may occur due to low levels of serotonin. Among them there are: clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, migraine headaches and bipolar disorder.

"The 5-HT2a and 5-HT2c receptors may play a role in the strong conditioned associations made between cocaine and environmental cues," said the lead scientists. He also mentioned that there would be a need to develop certain drugs that are highly specific for just those receptors. This is due to the fact that interactions with other members of the family may lead to hallucinations as well as heart valve problems.

The collaborators of Alan Kozikowski include Dr. Bryan Roth of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and his colleagues. They were able to spot an antidepressant drug, which can be considered as a possible lead candidate that could identify other 5-HT2c-receptor-binding useful compounds.

According to Kozikowski the new 5-HT2c-receptor-binding compounds can be useful "both as research tools and as potential therapeutics for use in treating cocaine addiction and possibly other disorders, including obesity".

Kozikowski's collaborators Kenneth Johnson Jr. and Kathryn Cunningham are currently working at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, making their research on animal models.