Researchers have developed a gene therapy to treat alcoholism, based on modifying reward circuits in the brain.
- Alcohol addiction can be cured but there is a significant risk of relapse.
- Researchers explain that they have developed a gene therapy to act on the brain circuits modified by this high consumption.
- A first test carried out on monkeys showed the effectiveness of this method.
A quarter of adults exceed drinking guidelines for alcohol, according to figures from Inserm. “These people are therefore exposed to hepatic, cardiovascular and neurological complications as well as an increased risk of cancer.“, warns the organization. In addition, they are also more likely to develop an addiction, which will further aggravate these various risks.
If there are treatments to take care of this addiction, alcoholism remains difficult to fight, because the people concerned have a high risk of relapse. Many scientists are working on more effective methods to fight this disease. An American team, presented in the Nature Medicine on August 14, 2023, an innovative treatment to treat alcohol addiction: gene therapy.
Alcoholism: a treatment that targets the reward circuit
“Currently, there is no therapy targeting the brain circuits that are impaired by sustained and heavy alcohol consumption.“says co-author Kathleen Grant, professor of behavioral neuroscience. Yet people with alcohol use disorders typically experience repeated cycles of abstinence followed by relapses, even when using one of the few existing drug treatments.
“Excessive alcohol consumption impairs certain nerve pathways in the brain that involve the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, say the authors. These neurons make up the mesolimbic reward pathway, which plays a major role in alcoholism and drug addiction.“The more the addiction develops, the more these alterations of the cerebral nerve pathways multiply. This leads to a reduction in the levels of dopamine. For the scientists this state “hypodopaminergic“may lead heavy drinkers to resume drinking after periods of abstinence.
Gene therapy to limit the risk of relapse in alcoholism
In their work, they sought to demonstrate the effects of a change in the release of dopamine in the brain. To achieve this, they used a group of primates to “show that sustained release of glia-derived neurotrophic factor (hGDNF) in a region of the brain called the ventral tegmental area (VTA) can prevent a return to heavy drinking after a period of abstinenceMore precisely, four macaques received a modified virus carrying a gene capable of acting on this cerebral reward circuit. All had previously been accustomed to alcohol. Four other monkeys constituted the control group.
Their findings show that administration of this gene therapy reduced alcohol consumption in monkeys, even after cycles of abstinence and then reintroduction of alcohol.
“Our results suggest that this drug can prevent relapses without requiring long-term adherence to treatment by patients.“, concludes the co-author of the study Krystof Bankiewicz, professor of neurological surgery.