Pubdate: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 Source: Edmonton Journal (CN AB) Copyright: 2007 The Edmonton Journal Contact: http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/134 Author: Sue Montgomery, Montreal Gazette Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) FREE COCAINE FOR ADDICTION STUDY SUBJECTS Research Into Drug's Effects On Brain Aims To Find Ways To Curb Cravings MONTREAL - Human guinea pigs in an unusual McGill University study are being given cocaine for free so researchers can chart the effects of the highly addictive drug on the brain with hopes of finding ways to curb strong cravings. The study -- which at first glance may raise some eyebrows -- was deemed the best in a competition for funding in the medical category of research related to brain behaviour. Its author, Marco Leyton, a professor in the university's psychology department, said about 35 per cent of people who use cocaine will become addicted and end up with a serious problem. "I tell my students that if Cuisinart comes out with a new food processor and only a third of users lost fingers while the remaining 70 per cent were satisfied, would that be reasonable?" Leyton said Sunday in an interview. While giving users free drugs may be seen by some as unethical, Margaret Somerville, founding director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, said it could also be seen as unethical if such research isn't done. "If you can't do the research, you can't help the people with addictions." Somerville has sat on several ethics committees and said rules for such projects are very strict. For example, participants have to be consenting adults and must have used the drug previously, and researchers can't enlist more subjects than they need. The ongoing study, which began five years ago and is to continue for another five with $120,000 annual funding from Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the blessing of McGill University Health Centre's ethics board, recruits up to 10 male and female participants a year. They are paid minimum wage for their time, and their consumption is tightly controlled. "Participants are closely monitored and stay overnight for observation with nurses and physicians on hand," Leyton said. "We don't just give them the cocaine and say: 'Okay, away you go.' " Depending on which stage of the study they are involved in, participants snort just one, or between three and five lines of coke. They then lie on their backs on a bed while a large, doughnut-shaped camera uses a technique called positron emission tomography, which produces a three-dimensional image, or map, of what's going on in the brain as the drug takes effect. Leyton hopes to take this information and find ways to lower the craving in the parts of the brain that go crazy for the drug. For example, the brain produces dopamine, a substance that allows us to respond to pleasure and pain, but the brain needs amino acids to make it. So, said Leyton, if a person is fed a diet low in these amino acids, the brain will produce less dopamine, thus lowering the brain's reward response to a drug like cocaine. So far, the study has involved regular, but not heavy, cocaine users. But Leyton submitted a proposal last Friday for funding to study heavy users. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom