According to INSERM data, approximately 90% of French people regularly consume alcohol, and 10% consume it daily. A habit that can lead to alcohol dependence, not to mention the harmful effects of alcohol on health. In a recent study, French researchers have pinpointed a new therapeutic approach against alcohol dependence, involving dopamine. Explanations.
From alcohol consumption to alcohol dependence
Frequent or even daily consumption, in quantities greater than the recommendations (more than two glasses per day), is a known risk factor for alcohol dependence or alcohol dependence. Alcohol addiction materializes by two complementary phenomena:
- A compulsive need to drinkdespite the negative effects of alcohol consumption;
- Signs of withdrawal in case of abstinence.
If alcohol dependence is well described, researchers continue to wonder: why do some heavy drinkers not become dependent on alcohol? By digging into this question, the researchers looked at the reward circuits of the brain, which involve a particular neurotransmitter, dopamine. The release of this neurotransmitter tends to provide a feeling of pleasure to the alcohol user, who consumes alcohol again to relive this feeling of pleasure, etc. This is what researchers call the reward circuitry.
Dopamine implicated in alcohol dependence
If the activation of the reward circuit associated with dopamine comes into play in the behavior of alcohol consumption, the role of dopamine in alcohol dependence remains unclear, despite several studies on the subject. Drugs that inhibit the action of dopamine, for example, do not reduce alcohol dependence. To find out more, the researchers conducted new work in rats.
They exposed rats several times to alcohol and like in humans, some of the rats developed an alcohol addiction. By analyzing the dopamine level in a region involved in motivation. The nigro-striatal pathway, the researchers observed that rats that became alcohol dependent had dopamine deficiency in the nigrostriatal region. In rats that had not become alcohol-dependent, the researchers reduced dopamine levels in the nigrostriatal region to the level seen in alcohol-dependent rats. Such a reduction in the level of dopamine led to an alcohol dependence of the rats, which had however not become dependent on alcohol by consuming it!
Reduce or eliminate consumption, the best defense against alcohol addiction
These new data allow the researchers to conclude that dopamine is well involved in the mechanisms of alcohol dependence, an implication that was previously controversial within the scientific community. Going further, the researchers wanted to test a new therapeutic approach. They administered to the rats a substance capable of stimulating the production of dopamine in the brain. This administration resulted in a decrease in the alcohol dependence of the rats.
These new data, observed only in rats, open new perspectives for better understanding alcohol dependence and treating it. But there is still a long way to go, first to transpose such data to humans, but also to study the role of factors other than dopamine in the development of addictive behavior. Until then, prevention of alcohol dependence remains the safest and most effective solution. By limiting alcohol consumption as much as possible!
Estelle B., Doctor of Pharmacy
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