Reversing Cocaine’s Effects with Light

Researchers use optogenetics to reverse drug-induced brain and behavioral changes.

Written byRuth Williams

| 3 min read

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FLICKR, NIGHTLIFE OF REVELRY

Thanks to the power of optogenetics, researchers in Switzerland have not only established the first causal link between cocaine-induced changes to brain cells and altered physical behavior, they have also reversed these changes. The report appears today (December 8^th) in Nature.

The results are “pretty exciting,” said Mark Thomas of the University of Minnesota, who was not involved in the research. “It is a proof of principal of that reversing synaptic plasticity induced by drug experience can change behavior. From that perspective it is a big step forward.”

Just like humans, mice taking cocaine become more physically active and jittery and, with repeated doses, that jitteriness increases—a phenomenon called locomotor sensitization. “The presence of this sensitization shows that the first few doses of drugs cause ...

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Meet the Author

Ruth Williams
Ruth is a freelance journalist. Before freelancing, Ruth was a news editor for the Journal of Cell Biology in New York and an assistant editor for Nature Reviews Neuroscience in London. Prior to that, she was a bona fide pipette-wielding, test tube–shaking, lab coat–shirking research scientist. She has a PhD in genetics from King’s College London, and was a postdoc in stem cell biology at Imperial College London. Today she lives and writes in Connecticut.
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