Everyone is aware of the negative effects of addictive drugs and how can it affect ones nervous system. A recent study shows that high doses of cocaine can cause or trigger the brain to have an out-of-control autophagy - a process where cells literally disassemble themselves.
As posted on Newsweek, a new research on mice finds clues that cocaine causes brain cells to cannibalize themselves. The process is known as overactive autophagy. Autophagy, apoptosis, and necrosis are the three pathways of cellular death.
Scientists also found signs of autophagy in the brain cells of mice whose mothers received the drug while pregnant.
Dr. Prasun Guha, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the lead author of the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said that the cell is like a household that is constantly generating trash.
"Autophagy is the housekeeper that takes the trash out - it is usually a good thing," he added, "but cocaine makes the housekeeper throw away really important things, like mitochondria, which produce energy for the cell," he told the The Telegraph.
This may be bad news for cocaine users but it is good news for scientists because autophagy that cocaine causes is the same process that kills brain cells in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's disease.
Scientists have been working on an experimental drug known as CGP3466B, which aims to control rapid autophagy, in clinical trials and so far have been successful. The experimental drug can help treat cocaine-recovering patients and their children in the future.
But more research is needed to find out if the experimental drug can thwart the hazardous effects of cocaine in people.
Co-author Dr. Maged Harraz, also from Johns Hopkins University, said that since cocaine works exclusively to modulate autophagy, there's a better chance they can develop new targeted therapeutics to suppress its toxicity.
Yet, even until now, researchers know very little how cocaine stimulates cell death. But the new study has identified the hazardous effects of cocaine to the brain.
