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Monday, August 2, 2010
Antonello Bonci, M.D., one of the world's leading researchers in neuropsychopharmacology, has been appointed the Scientific Director of National Institute on Drug Abuse's (NIDA) Intramural Research Program (IRP) in Baltimore. NIDA is part of the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Bonci is currently professor in residence in the Department of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he holds the Howard J. Weinberg Endowed Chair in Addiction Research. He is known for the elegance and multidisciplinary breadth of his studies on the long-term effects of drug exposure on the brain. Dr. Bonci and his colleagues were the first to demonstrate that drugs of abuse, such as cocaine, modify the strength of the connections between neurons. This finding cast a new light on the phenomenon of drug addiction, which could now be seen as a process of maladaptive learning. This new understanding, in turn, helped explain why drug taking can often become an automatic, compulsive behavior.
"We think Dr. Bonci will bring tremendous strength to our already robust intramural research portfolio," said NIDA Director Dr. Nora D. Volkow. "His impressive background as a superb neuroscientist with strong clinical training brings NIDA an exceptional investigator committed to translational science, and will bring us closer to new and better medicines for the treatment of addiction."
"I am thrilled to be a part of one of the world's most important scientific organizations looking at the challenging problem of drug abuse and addiction," said Dr. Bonci. "I especially look forward to working with Dr. Volkow and her colleagues in the extramural program, as well as the many top level investigators at the NIDA Intramural Research Center who have been responsible for many advances in addiction science. I hope that the experience I bring as a neurologist and a translational neuroscientist will help their already impressive scientific program thrive even further."
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The Huffington Post
Dr. Ali Binazir
June 15, 2010
Decision Enhancement Engineer, Author, Hypnotherapist, Thorn in the Side of Tyranny
I went to a talk a couple of weeks ago by a psychologist who said that battered wives go back to the abusing husband on average 7 times, even when social services has already intervened and set everything up for her to leave for good.
Seven times. To someone who is guaranteed to beat you up. Does that make any sense?
You know what else doesn't make sense? BDSM dungeons, where people pay good money to get abused by some latex-clad lady.
Here's a rubric I made for making sense of seemingly bizarre human behavior. If I saw it pop up over and over again -- say, millions of people doing it over the course of decades and centuries -- chances are that those people weren't totally nuts or stupid. There must be some deep biological phenomenon at work here.
You probably know folks who are stuck in terrible relationships, or who keep on having the same bad relationship with differently-named people. Heck, you may even be that person who engages in the serial self-flagellation. You also know people who systematically sabotage their own happiness: by being habitually late; by engaging in self-pity; by putting themselves down.
Turns out there's a dark reason to all of this. Many people unconsciously want to be treated poorly, taken advantage of, or even outright abused. They are seeking to experience self-pity, pain and denigration.
In this case, the biological phenomenon is simple: pain and negative emotions activate the reward centers of the brain, causing unconscious addiction to those negative emotions.
Let me say that again, because it was really, really important:
Pain and negative emotions activate the reward centers of the brain, causing unconscious addiction to those negative emotions.
Ladies and gentlemen -- this is a whopper. People think of the reward centers of the brain as the "pleasure centers," so it makes sense to them when someone gets addicted to cocaine, or crack, or sex. Because cocaine makes your brain light up, makes you high, and then you want more. Duh.
That's the addiction that people know. But you don't need cocaine or meth or crack to create a self-reinforcing addictive circuit in the brain. Anything that activates the beta-endorphin or dopamine pathways will do.
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Crossing the Bar
Understanding that Addictions are a Treatable Brain Disease
11.23.09
By Dr. Judith Ann Miller PhD, CEO Courage to Change Ranches
Printed in the January Issue of Journeys Magazine
Over the last two decades, our understanding of alcoholism and addiction has expanded exponentially. That understanding has been largely influenced not by the humanities, but by science – both pure and applied. Research in the fields of neurology, genetics, psychiatry, pharmacology, and nutrition – and the emergence of neuro-imaging, which can capture the actual workings of the brain – have all converged to provide new data on the relationship between thought and behavior. Its implications for the treatment of addiction are profound. Addiction is no longer perceived as a moral problem; it is now recognized as a brain disease that can be managed and treated.
It was in fact, a (European-trained) clinical nutritionist, Dr. Charles Lieber, who upset scientific dogma by proving in 1974 that alcohol was toxic. Until then cirrhosis of the liver had been attributed to malnutrition. Lieber also conducted the underlying research that led to identifying bacteria as the cause of stomach ulcers, discovered the toxic interaction between alcohol and Tylenol, and with the legendary Marty Mann established the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. From that point on the field of nutrition came to the forefront paralleled with cutting edge science in developing methods of recovery instead of just treating the symptoms alcoholism and addiction.
In general, once nutrients are ingested and broken down by the digestive system, they contribute to the overall functioning of the body. Some are used in the manufacture of hormones. And some, especially
proteins, are broken down into their constituent amino acids that build and maintain cells. These amino acids are the building blocks of the neurons of the brain.
In order to function at its optimum, the brain’ s neurochemistry utilizes naturally occurring substances; enzymes co-factors, fatty acids, amino acids, peptides, vitamins, and proteins to create a wide array of organic acids, neurotransmitters, hormones, other brain chemistry markers that determine the quality of mental and physical health. Once the brain/mind and body is satiated with the nutrients that it requires for survival, its response to addictive substances is greatly decreased.
Science has proven that certain amino acids deficiencies are the basis for addictive tendencies. Correcting those deficiencies provides neurotransmitter rebalancing and an opportunity for the systems of the body to function once again in homeostasis.
Amino acid therapy has been trialed since the 1950s, but the capability to work at the molecular level, which boosted so many of the sciences, has permitted nutritional researchers to identify deficiencies and target treatment as never before. Amino acid therapy provides actual physiological repair of the brain, as opposed to the masking that synthetic pharmacological medications accord.
Laboratory testing can determine exactly which amino acids are deficient, and dictate remediation. Further, precise dosages, in combination with interacting vitamins and minerals, can be compounded for specific individuals. Likewise through laboratory testing, progress in repairing the neurons and restoring healthy neurotransmissions can be monitored and is often measurable in weeks. This pioneering approach is slowly reaching mainstream addiction rehabilitation centers. But in the meantime, the clinics which have been trialing amino acid therapy over the last decade boast 5-year recovery maintenance rates as high as 80%, compared to the overall nationwide rate of 12%.
What AA intuited 7 decades ago; that alcoholism is a physiological disease, that it is chronic and incurable, is now scientifically verified, and furthermore, entrenched in the national bureaucracy.
However, the government’s attempts to deal with the mounting crisis of drug use and abuse, in the meantime, were stalled. The major institution charged with public policy, the National Institute on Drug
Abuse (NIDA), was facing the wall of stigma attached to the disease, and the grandstanding of politicians who exploited this stigma by progressively criminalizing addiction.
In a brilliant move, Dr. Elias Zerhouni, the director of NIDA‘s umbrella, the National Institute of Health (NIH), snagged Dr. Nora Volkow for the position of director of NIDA. It may be one of the few instances where a hardcore researcher was projected into such a powerful political position. After Volkow assumed leadership of NIDA in 2003, everything changed.
A perusal of the current literature from NIDA drives home the message: Addiction is a chronic disease characterized by observable physiological changes…and it is a disease that can be treated. Volkow‘s vision, however, does not stop with science. The evidence is invariably followed by a Volkow-style argument for substantiating the science with therapy and community-based support; the treatment of the person as a whole and as a part of society.
Volkow brings all this together at the level of national policy. More than one U.S. congressperson has been swayed by her plea to join the interests of public safety and public health. More than one judge has held hard evidence in hand to warrant orders for treatment from the bench.
Americans like to think that the road to social sanity is paved with good intentions, but indeed it may also be paved with the cobblestones of hard and irrefutable science that will allow the addict to finally walk down the road of recovery.
Excerpted from Crossing the Bar, a report on scientific issues relating to alcoholism and addiction by Judith Ann Miller, PhD, CEO Courage to Change Ranches, Colorado 719-541-4912
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