Treatment
A study published in May 2008, in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, detailed the effect of long-term cocaine intake on the amount and activity of thousands of proteins in monkeys. The researchers used "proteomic" technology, which enables the simultaneous analysis of thousands of proteins, to compare the "proteome" (all proteins expressed at a given time) between a group of monkeys that self-administered cocaine and a group that did not receive the drug. The study provides a comprehensive assessment of biochemical changes occurring in the cocaine-addicted brain. The profound changes in structure, metabolism and signaling of neurons may explain why relapse occurs and why it is difficult to reverse these changes after the drug use is discontinued.
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On February 14, 2011, two Swiss psychologists, Dr. Geneva Francois Crespo and Dr. Sylvie Petit Jean, published two years of trials and research which demonstrates that gambling along with psychotherapy is the best method to break the cocaine addiction cycle. According to Dr. Crespo - "After cocaine is used, it activates the reward center inside the brain. The brain released euphoric hormones and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, oxytocin and adrenaline which act as a mood enhancer. The same occurs with gambling: the brain perceives a reward from winning or the potential of a reward. The reward causes intense moments of happiness, which compensate for the desire to use cocaine". Further research is being conducted on long term relapse rates.
Read more about this topic: Cocaine Dependence
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“Our treatment of both older people and children reflects the value we place on independence and autonomy. We do our best to make our children independent from birth. We leave them all alone in rooms with the lights out and tell them, “Go to sleep by yourselves.” And the old people we respect most are the ones who will fight for their independence, who would sooner starve to death than ask for help.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art.”
—Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)