{"id":231229,"date":"2026-02-12T22:11:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T04:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/a-glaucoma-drug-may-help-prevent-opioid-relapse"},"modified":"2026-02-12T22:11:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T04:11:20","slug":"a-glaucoma-drug-may-help-prevent-opioid-relapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/a-glaucoma-drug-may-help-prevent-opioid-relapse","title":{"rendered":"A glaucoma drug may help prevent opioid relapse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/a-glaucoma-drug-may-help-prevent-opioid-relapse.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>An existing drug currently used to treat glaucoma, altitude sickness, and seizures may also have the potential to prevent relapse in opioid use disorder, according to a study by researchers at University of Iowa Health Care. The work is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41386-025-02319-5\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.<\/p>\n<p>The UI researchers led by John Wemmie, MD, Ph.D., focused on the drug known as acetazolamide (AZD) because it blocks the activity of a brain enzyme called carbonic anhydrase 4 (CA4). Wemmie\u2019s team had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/sciadv.abq5058\" target=\"_blank\">previously discovered<\/a> that <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2022-05-reveals-brain-circuit-responsible-cocaine.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">inhibiting CA4<\/a> in the whole brain, or just in its reward center (the nucleus accumbens), of mice, significantly reduced the brain changes that occurred after cocaine withdrawal. In addition, blocking the CA4 enzyme reduced drug-seeking behavior and relapse in the mice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat makes this approach promising is that it works in a completely different way from current treatments,\u201d says Wemmie, a professor of psychiatry in the UI Carver College of Medicine. \u201cInstead of targeting opioid receptors, AZD targets a different pathway involved in drug-induced synaptic changes and drug-seeking behavior. This could open the door to new therapies that help people stay in recovery by addressing the brain\u2019s long-term response to drug use.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An existing drug currently used to treat glaucoma, altitude sickness, and seizures may also have the potential to prevent relapse in opioid use disorder, according to a study by researchers at University of Iowa Health Care. The work is published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. The UI researchers led by John Wemmie, MD, Ph.D., focused on [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1495,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-health","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231229","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\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}