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Related Experiment Videos

Drugs to decrease alcohol drinking.

J D Sinclair1

  • 1Research Laboratories, Alko Ltd, Helsinki, Finland.

Annals of Medicine
|January 1, 1990
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Opiate antagonists may help treat alcoholism by blocking alcohol

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Pharmacology
  • Addiction Research

Background:

  • Alcohol drinking is a learned behavior reinforced by alcohol's effects in the brain.
  • Existing medications for alcoholism have limitations in clinical use.
  • Alcoholism is characterized by a dominant, overpowering alcohol-drinking response and craving.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To test the hypothesis that alcohol drinking is a learned response that can be extinguished.
  • To investigate the efficacy of opiate antagonists in blocking alcohol reinforcement.
  • To evaluate a novel extinction procedure for treating alcoholism.

Main Methods:

  • Administering opiate antagonists to rats during alcohol consumption.
  • Observing the effect of antagonists on alcohol-drinking behavior in a learned response model.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Assessing the safety and non-addictive properties of opiate antagonists like naloxone.

    • Main Results:

    • Experiments in rats support the hypothesis that opiate antagonists block alcohol reinforcement.
    • The presence of an antagonist during alcohol intake led to the extinction of alcohol-drinking responses in rats.
    • Opiate antagonists are non-addictive, and naloxone demonstrates apparent safety.

    Conclusions:

    • The findings suggest that blocking alcohol reinforcement with opiate antagonists can extinguish alcohol-drinking behavior.
    • This extinction procedure shows promise as an adjunct therapy for alcoholism treatment.
    • Further clinical trials are warranted to validate these findings in human alcoholics.