A&M To Give Rats Cocaine For Drug Addiction Study

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Cocaine will be doled out to research rats at Texas A&M University as part of a five-year study on the drug's effects on the brain.

Barry Setlow, a professor in the university's psychology department, hopes the research will lead to a greater understanding of drug addiction, relapses and treatment, the Bryan-College Station Eagle reported in Thursday's editions.

Setlow said he got the cocaine from the federal government, which bought it from a company that produces controlled substances for research. He received a $1.4 million federal grant for the study.

"A lot of addiction treatment is getting people to stop using drugs. That has to be the first step," Setlow said. "People may choose the immediate reward of a cocaine binge instead of the greater reward of spending time with your family or paying your mortgage."

He said while he feels bad for the rats in the study, he feels worse for people who use cocaine.

"I feel a lot worse for cocaine addicts and their families because it's an enormously, highly, highly, highly addictive drug," he said.

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Hammilton said:

Wow, this is news? This is done all the time.

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"People may choose the immediate reward of a cocaine binge instead of the greater reward of spending time with your family or paying your mortgage."

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He said while he feels bad for the rats in the study, he feels worse for people who use cocaine.

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Huaca said:

This researcher has a biased attitude. No wonder he received a government grant.

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Texas A&M University has been given a unique $1.4 million grant to study the problem of the addictive nature of cocaine and its affects on the long-term decision making processes.

Barry Setlow, a professor in the Behavioral and Cellular Neuroscience
Program in the Department of Psychology, has received a 5 year grant from the National Institutes of Health to examine the relationship of cocaine and its effects on choices.


What is learned from the laboratory rats exposed to cocaine could change the way health care experts look at treatment methods for humans who are battling addiction to the drug.

"The project is aimed at determining how chronic cocaine administration
affects a type of decision making called 'impulsive choice,'" Setlow
explains.

"In a nutshell, we and that includes rats or humans - prefer large rewards over small rewards. But if we have to start waiting for the large rewards, then the small and instant rewards quickly become more attractive. The longer the delay to the large reward, the more attractive the small reward becomes."

In Setlow's experiments, the rats will actually become addicts by choice.

They will press a small lever to get a "hit" of cocaine, and Setlow will
examine various aspects of decision making by the rats and what long-term mechanisms affect behavior.

"Does the rat have to be a full-blown addict, or will just a small amount of cocaine do the trick for it to respond differently? That's a big question we want to find out," he says.

"We will give the rats a choice to make - a small immediate reward, such as a small amount of food, or a larger but delayed reward, like a large amount of food. We will look to see how our cocaine-addicted rats choose compared to rats who have not used cocaine, what brain changes are responsible for these altered choices, and ultimately, whether these changes can be reversed.

"Importantly, all of the cocaine use in our rats will happen months before
we start testing their decision-making abilities, so the rats are not on
cocaine while they are choosing. We're interested in how that earlier period of cocaine use causes long-term - perhaps permanent - changes in the brain that lead to impulsive decision making."

Information learned from the project could lead to improved treatment for a variety of addictions.

Studies show that about 22 million Americans (about 9 percent of the population over 12 years of age) abuse or are addicted to alcohol or illegal drugs. Because increased impulsive choices appear to persist long after a drug user has stopped taking drugs, there are high relapse rates that follow even the best currently used addiction therapies, Setlow adds.

"What we learn could give us some better answers to these and other big
questions, and hopefully help in the treatment of millions of people who
suffer from substance addiction," he says.

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Cocaine will be doled out on the campus of Texas A&M University to try to get the subjects addicted.

The effort to get rats hooked is part of a five-year study on cocaine damage to brains.

Barry Setlow, a professor in A&M's Department of Psychology, recently received a $1.4 million federal grant.

The Bryan-College Station Eagle reported Thursday that Setlow hopes the research on rats will lead to a greater understanding of drug addiction, relapses and treatment.

Setlow secure the cocaine from the federal government, which he says buys it from a company that produces controlled substances for research.

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qwe said:

lolwut

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