Lipids and Addiction: How Sex Steroids, Prostaglandins, and Cannabinoids Interact With Drugs of Abuse.

Lipids and addiction: how sex steroids, prostaglandins, and cannabinoids interact with drugs of abuse.

Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2013 Mar 19;
Leishman E, Kokesh KJ, Bradshaw HB

Lipidomics aims to identify and characterize all endogenous species of lipids and understand their roles in cellular signaling and, ultimately, the functioning of the organism. We are on the cusp of fully understanding the functions of many of the lipid signaling systems that have been identified for decades (e.g., steroids, prostaglandins), whereas our understanding of newer lipid signaling systems (e.g., endocannabinoids, N-acyl amides) still lags considerably behind. With an emphasis on their roles in the neurophysiology of addiction, we will examine three classes of lipids-sex steroids, prostaglandins, and cannabinoids-and how they work synergistically in the neurocircuitry of motivation. We will first give a brief overview of the biosynthesis for each class of lipid and its receptors, and then summarize what is known about the collective roles of the lipids in cocaine and alcohol abuse. This approach provides a novel view of lipid signaling as a class of molecules and their synergistic roles in addiction. HubMed – addiction

Motivational interviewing to enhance nicotine patch treatment for smoking cessation among homeless smokers: a randomized controlled trial.

Addiction. 2013 Mar 19;
Okuyemi KS, Goldade K, Whembolua GL, Thomas JL, Eischen S, Sewali B, Guo H, Connett JE, Grant J, Ahluwalia JS, Resnicow K, Owen G, Gelberg L, Des Jarlais D

AIMS: To assess the effects of adding motivational interviewing (MI) counseling to nicotine patch for smoking cessation among homeless smokers. DESIGN: Two-group randomized controlled trial with 26-week follow-up. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: A total of 430 homeless smokers from emergency shelters and transitional housing units in Minneapolis/St Paul, Minnesota, USA. INTERVENTION AND MEASUREMENTS: All participants received 8-week treatment of 21-mg nicotine patch. In addition, participants in the intervention group received six individual sessions of MI counseling which aimed to increase adherence to nicotine patches and to motivate cessation. Participants in the standard care control group received one session of brief advice to quit smoking. Primary outcome was 7-day abstinence from cigarette smoking at 26 weeks, as validated by exhaled carbon monoxide and salivary cotinine. FINDINGS: Using intention-to-treat analysis, verified 7-day abstinence rate at week 26 for the intervention group was non-significantly higher than for the control group (9.3% versus 5.6%, P?=?0.15). Among participants who did not quit smoking, reduction in number of cigarettes from baseline to week 26 was equally high in both study groups (-13.7?±?11.9 for MI versus -13.5?±?16.2 for standard care). CONCLUSIONS: Adding motivational interviewing counseling to nicotine patch did not increase smoking rate significantly at 26-week follow-up for homeless smokers. HubMed – addiction

Vaccines against stimulants: Cocaine and Methamphetamine.

Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2013 Mar 19;
Kosten T, Domingo C, Orson F, Kinsey B

AIMS: While the worldwide prevalence of cocaine use remains significant, medications, or small molecule approaches, to treat drug addictions have met with limited success. Anti-addiction vaccines, on the other hand, have demonstrated great potential for treating drug abuse using a distinctly different mechanism of eliciting an antibody response that blocks the pharmacological effects of drugs. We provide a review of vaccine-based approaches to treating stimulant addictions; specifically methamphetamine and cocaine addictions. METHODS: This selective review article focuses on the one cocaine vaccine that has been into clinical trials and presents new data related to pre-clinical development of a methamphetamine (MA) vaccine. We also review the mechanism of action for vaccine induced antibodies to abused drugs, which involves kinetic slowing of brain entry as well as simple blocking properties. RESULTS: We present pre-clinical innovations for methamphetamine (MA) vaccines including hapten design, linkage to carrier proteins and new adjuvants beyond alum. We provide some new information on hapten structures and linkers and variations in protein carriers. We consider a carrier – outer membrance polysaccharide coat protein (OMPC) – that provides some self-adjuvant through lipopolysaccharide components and provide new results with a monophosopholipid adjuvant for the more standard carrier proteins with cocaine and MA. The review then covers the clinical trials with the cocaine vaccine TA-CD CONCLUSIONS: The clinical prospects for advances in this field over the next few years include a multi-site cocaine vaccine clinical trial to be reported in 2013 and phase 1 clinical trials of a MA vaccine in 2014. HubMed – addiction

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