{"id":185268,"date":"2024-03-17T02:23:20","date_gmt":"2024-03-17T07:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/03\/extreme-treatment-for-alcoholism-slashes-drinking-by-90-in-monkeys"},"modified":"2024-03-17T02:23:20","modified_gmt":"2024-03-17T07:23:20","slug":"extreme-treatment-for-alcoholism-slashes-drinking-by-90-in-monkeys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/03\/extreme-treatment-for-alcoholism-slashes-drinking-by-90-in-monkeys","title":{"rendered":"Extreme treatment for alcoholism slashes drinking by 90% in monkeys"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/extreme-treatment-for-alcoholism-slashes-drinking-by-90-in-monkeys2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/alcohol\/features\/excessive-alcohol-deaths.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CDC<\/a>, more than 140,000 Americans are dying each year from alcohol-related causes, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/products\/databriefs\/db448.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">rate of deaths<\/a> has been rising for years, especially during the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The idea:<\/strong> For occasional drinkers, alcohol causes the brain to release more dopamine, a chemical that makes you feel good. Chronic alcohol use, however, causes the brain to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4801269\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">produce, and process, <em>less<\/em> dopamine<\/a>, and this persistent dopamine deficit has been linked to alcohol relapse.<\/p>\n<p>There is currently no way to reverse the changes in the brain brought about by AUD, but a team of US researchers suspected that an in-development <a href=\"https:\/\/clinicaltrials.ucsf.edu\/trial\/NCT04167540\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">gene therapy for Parkinson\u2019s disease<\/a> might work as a dopamine-replenishing treatment for alcoholism, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to the CDC, more than 140,000 Americans are dying each year from alcohol-related causes, and the rate of deaths has been rising for years, especially during the pandemic. The idea: For occasional drinkers, alcohol causes the brain to release more dopamine, a chemical that makes you feel good. Chronic alcohol use, however, causes the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}