�Vigabatrin, a medication proposed as a potential discourse for drug addiction by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, as well leads to rapid weight loss and reduced food intake according to a new creature study from the same research group. The sketch was published online August 20, 2008, by the journal Synapse. Vigabatrin is currently undergoing U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved Phase II clinical trials against cocaine and methamphetamine hydrochloride addiction across the U.S.
In the stream study, animals genetically bred to be obese experienced a loss of up to 19 percent of their total weight piece non-obese animals lost 12 to 20 percent next short-term vigabatrin administration.
"Our results appear to demonstrate that vigabatrin induced satiety in these animals," said Amy DeMarco, wHO led the study, working in the laboratory of Brookhaven Lab senior scientist Stephen Dewey. Dewey number one identified vigabatrin as a potential addiction treatment and has conducted more than 20 years of presymptomatic research with this promising medication.
Earlier studies at Brookhaven Lab establish a substantial connection between obesity and addiction, including similar changes in the brains of the weighty and those addicted to drugs like cocaine. Based on these connections, Dewey hypothesized that vigabatrin would quench food cravings in the laboratory rats.
"Given the growing corpulency epidemic, we felt that examining vigabatrin's therapeutic efficaciousness for fleshiness was particularly relevant," Dewey said. A total of 50 teenage and adult animals, both genetically bred "fat" and normal-weight animals, were assigned to either a control group or groups that received vigabatrin at several dose levels and were monitored for up to 40 days. The controls received day-to-day salt urine (saline) injections, while those in the study groups received up to three hundred milligrams (mg) of vigabatrin a day. All animals received injections for deuce 7-13-day periods, with breaks in between.
At the goal of the 40-day catamenia, all animals receiving vigabatrin weighed significantly less than the controls. The rotund animals receiving the 300mg dose weighed far less and consumed less nutrient than the 150 and 75mg groups. The rotund animals receiving vigabatrin lost an median of 19 percent of their initial weight, piece non-obese animals lost 'tween 12 and 20 per centum of their weight.
"The fact that these results occurred in genetically obese animals offers hope that this drug could potentially process severe obesity," said Dewey. "This would appear to be true even if the obesity results from binge feeding, as this disorder is characterized by eating patterns that ar similar to drug-taking patterns in those with cocain dependency."
Dewey and Jonathan Brodie, a prof of psychopathology at New York University School of Medicine, get conducted all-inclusive studies on animals at Brookhaven Lab showing that vigabatrin attenuates or blocks neurological and behavioral changes associated with drug addiction. Vigabatrin has been tested in humans in two small open-label studies, as well as in a 103-patient double-blinded, placebo-controlled test. Vigabatrin is now beingness commercialized by Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners, which is presently conducting iI FDA-approved Phase II trials. For more on Brookhaven National Laboratory's addiction discussion research, see http://www.bnl.gov/CTN/GVG. For more information about Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners, see http://www.catalystpharma.com/.
This research was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health and by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research within DOE's Office of Science. Brookhaven Lab has a world-renowned research program aimed at understanding the neurologic mechanisms and consequences of drug habituation and other addictive behaviors. This program is fueled, in contribution, by DOE's long-standing support of brain-imaging technologies developed as a direct process of their commitment to basic physical science and atomic chemistry research.
All research involving laboratory animals at Brookhaven National Laboratory is conducted under the jurisdiction of the Lab's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee in complaisance with the Public Health Service (PHS) Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal Welfare Act, and the National Academy of Sciences' Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. This research has enhanced understanding of a wide array of human medical conditions including cancer, dose addiction, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and normal senescence and has led to the development of several promising intervention strategies.
RELATED INFORMATION
Links to the studies described below appear on the web version of this news release at: http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=811)
Stephen Dewey and colleagues birth conducted more than than 20 years of research on vigabatrin as a potential addiction treatment.
Pre-clinical (animal) studies have:
demonstrated that vigabatrin blocks dopamine increases triggered by environmental cues related to drug use
demonstrated that vigabatrin blocks the process in the brain that causes cocaine's "high"
demonstrated that vigabatrin does the same for nicotine
shown that vigabatrin may block the habit-forming effects of toluene, a commonly used inhalant
Clinical milestones include:
the first small clinical tribulation of vigabatrin showed prolonged abstinence and elimination of drug craving in long-run cocaine addicts
the second gear small clinical trial of vigabatrin showed prolonged abstinence and no visual problems in cocain and glass abusers
vigabatrin's first Phase II, double blind placebo-controlled trial shows positive results in treating cocain abuse an FDA-sanctioned, Phase II multicenter study of vigabatrin starts
The neurobiology of eating disorders and obesity and their discourse is some other major focus of research at Brookhaven Lab. Earlier studies at the Lab have:
identified wit circuits that may reason the weighty to pig out
shown that levels of dopamine receptors, which incur chemical messages of well being and reward in the brain, are decreased in the brains of obese individuals
demonstrated that parts of the mentality responsible for sensation in the tongue, mouth, and lips ar more active in the obese
revealed that the mere sight and smell of front-runner foods spikes levels of dopamine in the brains of food-deprived people - just as it spikes this pleasure chemical in the brains of those with dose addictions in response to their dose of selection
One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in free energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited liability company founded by the Research Foundation of State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic substance abuser of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.
Source: Karen McNulty Walsh
DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
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Wednesday, 10 September 2008
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