Vigabatrin may soon be helping cocaine addicts break free from addiction by greatly reducing the experienced cravings for the drug during withdrawal.
A commonly taught technique to reduce the impact and intensity of cravings is to minimize your exposure to those triggers that provoke them. A recent study shows how hard this to do - showing that the brain sees things that we are not even consciously aware of, other than being conscious of wanting another hit...
Can you tell the difference between a thrill seeking rat and an impulsive rat? At Cambridge Universtiy, they say they can - and so scientists there compared these thrill seeking and impulsive rats by giving them all lots of cocaine. They also just made a breakthrough in our understanding of cocaine addiction, the kinds of people that are most at risk - and the kinds of treatment that might just work.