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Ketamine may help treat alcoholism by weakening memory | Science News
The hallucinogenic drug may help treat addiction by weakening past memories of drinking
A single dose of ketamine may cut down problematic drinking. Taken in the right context, the hallucinogenic drug may be able to weaken the pull of the cues that trigger people to drink beer, researchers report November 26 in Nature Communications.
Ketamine’s influence on people’s drinking was modest. Still, the results might be a time when “small effects tell a big story,” says addiction researcher David Epstein of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Baltimore. “If a seemingly small one-time experience in a lab produces any effects that are detectable later in real life, the data are probably pointing toward something important.”
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I think the key word in this abstract is cravings. Most alcoholics can quit drinking but it is the memory of the enjoyment caused by drinking, the cravings, that draws them back to it & causes relapses. The muscle relaxant drug baclofen, which is unrelated to ketamine, is under study by the NIH for use as a withdrawal treatment for alcoholics wishing to quit. It seems to erase the memory of alcohol intoxication like ketamine. Baclofen, unlike ketamine, is not hallucinogenic. The two molecules act at different receptors in the brain. Ketamine also acts as an antidepressant.
The hallucinogenic drug may help treat addiction by weakening past memories of drinking
A single dose of ketamine may cut down problematic drinking. Taken in the right context, the hallucinogenic drug may be able to weaken the pull of the cues that trigger people to drink beer, researchers report November 26 in Nature Communications.
Ketamine’s influence on people’s drinking was modest. Still, the results might be a time when “small effects tell a big story,” says addiction researcher David Epstein of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Baltimore. “If a seemingly small one-time experience in a lab produces any effects that are detectable later in real life, the data are probably pointing toward something important.”
====================================================================
I think the key word in this abstract is cravings. Most alcoholics can quit drinking but it is the memory of the enjoyment caused by drinking, the cravings, that draws them back to it & causes relapses. The muscle relaxant drug baclofen, which is unrelated to ketamine, is under study by the NIH for use as a withdrawal treatment for alcoholics wishing to quit. It seems to erase the memory of alcohol intoxication like ketamine. Baclofen, unlike ketamine, is not hallucinogenic. The two molecules act at different receptors in the brain. Ketamine also acts as an antidepressant.
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