DEFECTS in a brain protein that appears to dampen the exhilarating sensations
caused by cocaine could make people more susceptible to drug addiction,
scientists in the US have found.
Mutant mice lacking a protein called fosB become unusually hyperactive on
cocaine and excited when they are in places associated with the drug, according
to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (vol
94, p 10397).
鈥淚f there are people who don鈥檛 have a normal fosB gene, they might be primed
for drug dependence,鈥� says Noboru Hiroi, now at the Albert Einstein College of
Medicine in New York. Learning more about fosB could lead to novel treatments
for addiction, he says.
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