Health

Better Understanding Alcoholic Relapses

New research suggests that molecular mechanisms within the brain play a large part in why certain recovering alcoholics are more prone to relapse.

For people dealing with alcohol addiction, some of the biggest challenges they can face are after they complete their treatment and leave the addiction center. Studies have shown that up to 90 percent of alcoholics will experience at least one relapse within the first four years of getting clean and sober. In many cases, the feelings of shame and guilt at having a relapse are too difficult for people to bear, leading them down the path of returning to alcoholism.

However, there is a scientific reason that people relapse and end up back in alcohol rehabilitation. Alcoholics have powerful “cravings” for alcohol triggered by changes in how their brain functions. These cravings can be incredibly powerful and overwhelm the ability of a recovering alcoholic to resist the temptation to drink.

Recently, scientists at the University of California, San Francisco looked at the molecular mechanisms involved in the types of cravings that alcoholics deal with after leaving alcohol and drug rehab. Tests focused on a group of rats which had been given free access to either alcohol or sugar for two months followed by a three-week period of abstinence. Tests showed that the rats which had previous access to alcohol had increased electrical activity in their NAcb core, a part of the brain which controls motivation and goal-directed behaviors, while the rats who had previously been ingesting sugar did not.

Because of similarities in the brain functions of rats and humans, this sort of experimentation is often done to test out new theories in drug treatment. Researchers concluded that the increased activity in the NAcb core was because of inhibition of small-conductance calcium-activated potassium channels (SK) and that decreased amounts of SK currents would lead to increased NAcb activity and more of the types of cravings for alcohol found after alcohol treatment.

Dr. Antonello Bonci, a senior author on the project, said that this research opens up exciting possibilities for future drug rehabilitation.

“Our findings are particularly exciting because the FDA-approved drug chlorzoxazone, which has been used for more than 30 years as a muscle relaxant, can activate SK channels,” Dr. Bonci said. “Although SK channels are not the only target of this drug and it can present a variety of clinical side effects, it provides an unexpected and very exciting opportunity to design human clinical trials to examine whether chlorzoxazone, or other SK activators, reduce excessive or pathological alcohol drinking.”