Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed an imaging protocol that allows them to visualize the activity of the brain's reward circuitry in normal individuals and people addicted to drugs.
The technique could lead to better insight into why people take recreational drugs and help determine which treatment strategies might be most effective.
To get a real-time sense of dopamine activity, Joanna Fowler, Ph.D., and her colleague Dr. Gene-Jack Wang at Brookhaven in Upton, NY, along with Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, combined PET with special radioactive tracers that bind to dopamine receptors.
PET highlights the movement of the tracers in the brain and can be used to reconstruct real-time 3D images of the dopamine system in action.
The scientists tested this procedure on several drug-addicted volunteers and age-matched healthy control subjects. They found that people with addictions in general have 15% to 20% fewer dopamine receptors than normal and, thus, cannot bind much of the dopamine released in response to drugs or natural reinforcers, such as food.
Fowler noted that the addicted individuals all had a "blunted dopamine response," reinforcing the idea that drug addicts experience diminished feelings of pleasure, which drives their continual drug use.
The study was presented on April 16 at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) annual meeting in Anaheim, CA.
Related Reading
UCLA study finds PET with FDDNP radiotracer can predict Alzheimer's, January 13, 2009
PET exposes shift in brain function among young alcohol abusers, August 23, 2007
PET scans show just seeing food lights up the brain, May 24, 2002
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