Psych Central News
Ritalin for Cocaine Addiction?
Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York performed imaging studies to develop their hypothesis. They found that the drug modified connectivity in certain brain circuits that underlie self-control and craving among cocaine-addicted individuals.
The research is published in the current issue of JAMA Psychiatry.
Previous research has shown that oral methylphenidate improved brain function in cocaine users performing specific cognitive tasks such as ignoring emotionally distracting words and resolving a cognitive conflict.
Similar to cocaine, methylphenidate increases dopamine (and norepinephrine) activity in the brain, but, administered orally, takes longer to reach peak effect, giving it a lower potential for abuse.
By extending dopamine’s action, the drug enhances signaling to improve several cognitive functions, including information processing and attention.
“Orally administered methylphenidate increases dopamine in the brain, similar to cocaine, but without the strong addictive properties,” said Rita Goldstein, Ph.D., who led the research while at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in New York.
“We wanted to determine whether such substitutive properties, which are helpful in other replacement therapies such as using nicotine gum instead of smoking cigarettes or methadone instead of heroin, would play a role in enhancing brain connectivity between regions of potential importance for intervention in cocaine addiction.”
Anna Konova, a doctoral candidate at Stony Brook University, who was first author on this manuscript, added, “Using fMRI, we found that methylphenidate did indeed have a beneficial impact on the connectivity between several brain centers associated with addiction.”
For the study, Goldstein and her team recruited 18 cocaine-addicted individuals. Participants were then randomized to receive an oral dose of methylphenidate or placebo.
The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the strength of connectivity in particular brain circuits known to play a role in addiction before and during peak drug effects. They also assessed each subject’s severity of addiction to see if this had any bearing on the results.
Methylphenidate decreased connectivity between areas of the brain that have been strongly implicated in the formation of habits, including compulsive drug seeking and craving.
The scans also showed that methylphenidate strengthened connectivity between several brain regions involved in regulating emotions and exerting control over behaviors—connections previously reported to be disrupted in cocaine addiction.
“The benefits of methylphenidate were present after only one dose, indicating that this drug has significant potential as a treatment add-on for addiction to cocaine and possibly other stimulants,” said Goldstein.
“This is a preliminary study, but the findings are exciting and warrant further exploration, particularly in conjunction with cognitive behavioral therapy or cognitive remediation.”
Source: The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Balance between Self & Partner Essential as Impulsive Partner is More Selfless
New research discover that many will sacrifice for their partner before they care for themselves, a behavior tied to low self-control. However, low self-control can ultimately harm a relationship.
An ideal relationship allows each partner to have an appropriate balance of sharing and individualism.
“For decades psychologists have assumed that the first impulse is selfish and that it takes self-control to behave in a pro-social manner,” says lead researcher Francesca Righetti of VU University Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
“We did not believe that this was true in every context, and especially not in close relationships.”
Righetti and colleagues sought to examine whether impulsivity, in close relationships, might actually benefit others.
They found that participants whose self-control was taxed (and were thus more impulsive) were more willing to sacrifice time and energy for their romantic partner or best friend than participants whose self-control wasn’t taxed.
In one study, to find out whether they would sacrifice in actual practice, the researchers told couples they would have to talk to 12 strangers and ask them embarrassing questions. The participants didn’t know that they wouldn’t actually have to follow through with the task.
Participants with high self-control opted to split the burden right down the middle — assigning six strangers to themselves and six strangers to their partner.
But participants with low self-control opted to take on more of the burden, sacrificing their own comfort to spare their partners.
A final experiment revealed that married individuals low in trait self-control sacrificed more for their partners, yet were also less forgiving of their transgressions — presumably because self-control is required to override the focus on the wrongdoing and think instead about the relationship as a whole.
While sacrificing for a partner may help to build the relationship on a day-to-day basis, Righetti and colleagues note that it could backfire over the long-term, compromising individuals’ ability to maintain a balance between personal and relationship-related concerns.
This balance is a perennial issue for anyone in a close relationship:
“Whether it’s about which activities to engage in during free time, whose friends to go out with, or which city to live in, relationship partners often face a divergence of interests — what is most preferred by one partner is not preferred by the other,” notes Righetti.
The field of research is relatively new, so the jury is still out on what effects sacrifice has on relationship well-being, but Righetti is hopeful that research over the next few years will shed more light on the link.
Source: Association for Psychological Science
Man pulling on a woman’s suspenders photo by shutterstock.
0 comments:
Post a Comment