Pulses of light stop binge drinking in rats
Posted by staff / January 7, 2014 binge drinkingbinge drinking alcoholCaroline Basscausal relationshipdopamine neurons
A technique that uses light to stimulate neurons, known as optogenetics, stops rats from binge drinking alcohol.
Researchers say this is the first study to demonstrate a causal relationship between the release of dopamine in the brain and drinking behaviors of animals. In the experiments, rats were trained to drink alcohol in a way that mimics human binge-drinking behavior.
“By stimulating certain dopamine neurons in a precise pattern, resulting in low but prolonged levels of dopamine release, we could prevent the rats from binging,” says Caroline Bass, assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University at Buffalo. “The rats just flat out stopped drinking.”
Full story at Futurity.
Photo credit: Alexey Krasavin/Flickr
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