Source:  Omaha World Herald April  24, 1997 NEWS; Pg. 3
FAX: OMAHA WORLDHERALD  OMAHA NE  14023450183;

BRAIN STUDY MAY HELP FIGHT COCAINE ADDICTION by Newsday
Copyright (c) 1997, Omaha WorldHerald Company

 Researchers have shown how  cocaine produces its high by
studying the  brains of addicts. The findings could lead to
 a way to prevent or treat cocaine addiction.

   Dr. Nora Volkow and her colleagues at  Brookhaven
National Laboratory used a brain  scan to measure the brain
chemical dopamine as  cocaine traveled through addicts'
systems. Dopamine's functions include  regulating
motivation, mood and movement.

   The scans measured the dopamine transporter, a  system
that moves dopamine from outside to  inside cells.
Scientists observed that the  addicts experienced a high
only when more than  half of the transporters were occupied
with  cocaine.

   "I'm high on the findings,"	Michael Kuhar, a cocaine
researcher  and professor of medicine at Emory University, 
said of the study. It was reported Thursday in	the journal
Nature.

   Specialists in the  field say they finally see a way to
devise	treatments for some of the 2.1 million cocaine 
addicts in the United States. Many policy  analysts say the
true hope for progress in the	drug war  lies in
strategies that reduce demand,	rather than trying to
attack supplies in Latin  America or halt the narcotics at
the border.

   In theory, scientists could develop drugs  that bind to
the dopamine transporter, which in  effect would lock the
brain's door to  cocaine. Dr. Kuhar's lab has identified 
and is studying 15 substances that could work  as
nonaddicting treatments, functioning much as  a nicotine
patch does for smokers.

   Scientists at Columbia University are working  on a
cocaine vaccine, a similar approach that  would use the
body's immune system to  build antibodies against cocaine,
thus  preventing much of the drug from reaching the  brain.
Another alternative is a cocaine  antagonist, a medicine
that blocks cocaine's  penchant for the dopamine
transporters  and keeps it away from the brain.