Cocaine might give users a buzz, but it could also be making brain cells eat themselves, according to new research.
While normally an important survival mechanism for the cell, at high
enough doses the drug seems to make this process go into overdrive,
causing cells to digest their innards to such an extent that they die.More than just contributing to our knowledge of how this drug leads to its notable toxic effects, the work could potentially offer scientists a new treatment avenue to explore. Inhibiting this pathway with a different drug was found to protect neurons against cocaine-triggered death, raising the possibility that the same agent or something related may represent a viable therapy for cocaine abuse. The study has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.