Weiss, center, with staff.
|
Treating Substance Abuse
With a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Roger Weiss, MD, director of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment Center, is overseeing a network of nine clinical trial sites throughout New England, centered at McLean, and a partnership between academic researchers and clinical treatment programs. The goal is to work collaboratively to design and implement addiction treatment
studies in community treatment programs so that patients receive the full benefit of the evolving
science of addiction treatment. The five-year
studies will determine the effectiveness of a variety of treatment approaches in a broad range of settings.
Siegel
|
|
Negus, left, and colleague Peter Fivel
|
The development of new medications for the alleviation of pain is an ongoing challenge for S. Stevens Negus, PhD, and scientists working in the Neurobiology Program at the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Center (ADARC). ADARC researchers, working with the National Institutes of Health, have identified a drug that decreases inflammatory pain and is more effective than non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. This research may lead to new approaches for the treatment of inflammatory pain usually associated with surgery, burns and arthritis.
|
|
Cocaine and heroin abusers often inject both drugs
simultaneously in a combination known as a speedball. Treatments that are effective for heroin abuse alone are usually less effective for treatment of speedball abuse. Researchers in the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Centers Behavioral Science Laboratory, directed by Nancy Mello, PhD, have
developed a pre-clinical model of speedball self-administration and are using this model to search for better treatments. One promising approach is to combine an anti-cocaine with an anti-heroin medication, which reduces
speedball self-administration more effectively than treatment with either
medication alone.
|
|
Researchers in the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Center's Clinical Research Program, directed by Jack Mendelson, MD, in collaboration with McLeans Department of Internal Medicine, led by Arthur Siegel, MD, left, have shown that frequent cocaine use triggers a dangerous cascade of events that can lead to heart attack and stroke. Normally, blood-thickening factors promoted by inflammation guard against blood loss and initiate tissue repair after damage by injury, while blood thinning factors limit potentially
dangerous clotting effects. Frequent cocaine use disrupts this balance by
promoting inflammation and clotting effects, which could set the stage for heart attack and stroke following an injury.
|
