Single Cocaine High Opens Addiction Window

A single exposure to cocaine triggers a weeklong surge of activity in a brain region central to the development of addiction, according to a UC San Francisco study of mice in Thursday’s Nature. The first drug exposure throws open a window of vulnerability that may make the brain acutely responsive to subsequent exposures for a week to 10 days--in effect, priming the brain for addiction. The exposure doubles the responsiveness of dopamine neurons, which play a key role in the drug high and subsequent craving, according to Dr. Antonello Bonci and his colleagues.

Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II