brain area smaller in cocaine addicts
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brain area smaller in cocaine addicts
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BRAIN AREA SMALLER IN COCAINE ADDICTS
Posted By: Seidr
Date: Tuesday, 23 November 2004, 7:04 a.m.
NEW FROM NEIL SLADE:
Greetings Brain Explorers!
Scientists now document that cocaine addicts have smaller amygdalae.
First the official news blurb:
Brain Area Found to Be Smaller in Cocaine Addicts
Fri Nov 19,10:03 AM ET Health - Reuters
By Amy Norton
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A part of the brain involved in both drug
craving and judgment appears to be smaller in cocaine addicts than in
healthy people, researchers have found.
Analyzing brain scans from 27 people addicted to cocaine and 27
healthy adults of the same age, the researchers found that in the drug
abusers, a brain structure called the amygdala was smaller than normal.
Exactly what the finding means is not yet clear, but several pieces of
evidence suggest that reduced volume in the amygdala may predispose a
person to cocaine addiction, the study's senior author told Reuters
Health.
The amygdala is a collection of nuclei in the brain involved in the
processing of emotion. Brain-imaging studies have tied drug craving to
activity in the amygdala, and recent research has also suggested that
the brain structure aids in sizing up the potential negative outcomes
of an action.
It's such judgment that people with drug addiction typically lack, Dr.
Hans C. Breiter of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston noted in
an interview with Reuters Health.
His team's study, published in the November 18th issue of the journal
Neuron, cannot answer the question of whether smaller amygdala volume
is a contributor to or consequence of cocaine addiction, Breiter said.
However, he pointed to evidence that supports a causal role. For
example, amygdala volume did not correspond with the level of a
person's drug abuse; cocaine users in the study had abused the drug
for anywhere from one to 27 years, yet had similar reductions in
amygdala size.
In addition, Breiter explained, during normal development, the
right-hemisphere amygdala becomes larger than the left. However, in
these cocaine addicts, he said, "there was a loss of this asymmetry."
It seems unlikely, the researcher noted, that drug abuse would have
affected only one side of the brain in these individuals. Instead, he
said, such a loss of asymmetry in the amygdala would seem to have
genetic underpinnings.
But if a reduction in amygdala volume is involved in cocaine
addiction, the implications would be great regardless of whether it's
a cause or effect, according to Breiter.
If even short-term cocaine abuse can cause such "dramatic"
degenerative change in the brain, he said,
that would highlight a
prime danger of the drug.
On the other hand, if smaller amygdala volume raises a person's
vulnerability to cocaine addiction, then it offers a potential way to
reveal that risk.
According to Breiter, it might become possible for
people with a family history of any forms of addiction to get a brain
scan of the amygdala to see if they have this structural predisposition.
The fact that the amygdala appears to be involved in judging the
potential pitfalls of an action may help explain how an abnormality in
its structure could make a person susceptible to cocaine addiction,
according to Breiter.
However, there is also the amygdala's role in drug craving. An
interesting finding, Breiter noted, was that "the smaller the amygdala
was, the more they craved for cocaine."
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