Treating Binge Drinking With Gene Therapy
It is well known that the GABAA receptor is involved in producing alcohol's effects, and GABA blockers are often used in the treatment of alcoholism. Now researchers have shown that genetic manipulation of the receptor can dramatically reduce binge drinking in rats bred to prefer alcohol (they don't typically imbibe). They injected a particular version of RNA into the amygdala, where it reduced the density of GABAA receptors by 65%; binge drinking dropped profoundly in the ensuing 6 days and returned to previous levels by day 14. The most novel finding in the study was that binge drinking could also be reduced by blocking TLR4 receptors in the same area; TLR4 is an immune receptor that promotes neural inflammation and degeneration. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol 108, 4465-4470.







Assessing the Costs of Drug Abuse
Drug abuse is a serious societal problem, but determining which drugs are most problematic isn't as easy as you might think. A group of British researchers tried to get a handle on the issue by having a panel of experts evaluate 20 drugs, using a quantitative procedure called multicriterion decision analysis to score the drugs on 16 criteria. The panel ranked alcohol as clearly the most harmful drug; alcohol was followed, in order, by heroin, crack cocaine, methamphetamine, cocaine, and tobacco. The authors of the article concluded that there is little relationship between the United Kingdom's drug classification system and the harm done by the various drugs. Lancet, Vol 376, 1558-1565. The results turned out to be controversial, though, as commentary in a later issue indicated. Critics were particularly concerned with the evaluation methodology and with the downplay of the number of smoking related deaths. In addition, the authors gave scant attention to the fact that the amount of harm is influenced in part by the drug's legality and availability. A non-controversial conclusion was that more focus is needed on mitigating the harm of legal drugs. (Vol 377, 551-552; 552-553; 553-554).