{"id":6052,"date":"2010-02-12T21:22:37","date_gmt":"2010-02-12T21:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=6052"},"modified":"2010-02-15T10:28:05","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T10:28:05","slug":"club-drugs-inflict-damage-similar-to-traumatic-brain-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2010\/02\/club-drugs-inflict-damage-similar-to-traumatic-brain-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Club Drugs Inflict Damage Similar To Traumatic Brain Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do suffering a traumatic brain injury and using club drugs have in common? University of Florida researchers say both may trigger a similar chemical chain reaction in the brain, leading to cell death, memory loss and potentially
\nirreversible brain damage. <\/p>\n

A series of studies at UF over the past five years has shown using the
\npopular club drug Ecstasy, also called MDMA, and other forms of
\nmethamphetamine lead to the same type of brain changes, cell loss and
\nprotein fluctuations in the brain that occur after a person endures a
\nsharp blow to the head, according to recent findings. <\/p>\n

“Using methamphetamine is like inflicting a traumatic brain injury on
\nyourself,” said Firas Kobeissy, a postdoctoral associate in the College
\nof Medicine department of psychiatry. “We found that a lot of brain
\ncells are being injured by these drugs. That’s alarming to society now.
\nPeople don’t seem to take club drugs as seriously as drugs such as
\nheroin or cocaine.”<\/p>\n

Working with UF researchers Dr. Mark Gold, chief of the division of
\naddiction medicine at UF’s McKnight Brain Institute and one of the
\ncountry’s leading experts on addiction medicine, and Kevin Wang,
\ndirector of the UF Center for Neuroproteomics and Biomarkers Research,
\nKobeissy compared what happened in the brains of rats given large doses
\nof methamphetamine with what happened to those that had suffered a
\ntraumatic brain injury. <\/p>\n

The group’s research has already shown how traumatic brain injury
\naffects brain cells in rats. They found similar damage in the rats
\nexposed to methamphetamine. In the brain, club drugs set off a chain of
\nevents that injures brain cells. The drugs seem to damage certain
\nproteins in the brain, which causes protein levels to fluctuate. When
\nproteins are damaged, brain cells could die. In addition, as some
\nproteins change under the influence of methamphetamine, they also begin
\nto cause inflammation in the brain, which can be deadly, Kobeissy said. <\/p>\n

Kobeissy and other researchers in Gold’s lab are using novel protein
\nanalysis methods to understand how drug abuse alters the brain. Looking
\nspecifically at proteins in the rat cortex, UF researchers discovered
\nthat about 12 percent of the proteins in this region of the brain showed
\nthe same kinds of changes after either methamphetamine use or traumatic
\nbrain injury. There are about 30,000 proteins in the brain so such a
\nsignificant parallel indicates that a similar mechanism is at work after
\nboth traumatic brain injury and methamphetamine abuse, Kobeissy said. <\/p>\n

“Sometimes people go to the clubs and take three tablets of Ecstasy or
\nspeed,” Kobeissy said. “That may be a toxic dose for them. Toxic effects
\ncan be seen for methamphetamine, Ecstasy and traumatic injury in
\ndifferent areas of the brain.” <\/p>\n

About 1.3 million people over the age of 12 reported using
\nmethamphetamine in the previous month, according to the 2006 National
\nSurvey on Drug Use and Health. In 2004, more than 12 million Americans
\nreported having tried the drug, the survey’s findings show. <\/p>\n

People often think the effects of drugs of abuse wear off in the body
\nthe same way common medications do, but that may not be the case, Gold
\nsaid. <\/p>\n

“These data and the previous four years of data suggest some drugs,
\nespecially methamphetamine, cause changes that are not readily
\nreversible,” Gold said. “Future research is necessary for us to
\ndetermine when or if methamphetamine-related brain changes reverse
\nthemselves.”<\/p>\n

Gold and Dennis Steindler, director of UF’s McKnight Brain Institute and
\nan expert on stem cells, are planning studies to find out if stem cells
\ncan be applied to repair drug-related brain damage. <\/p>\n

UF researchers are also trying to uncover all the various ways drugs
\ndamage and kill brain cells. During their protein analysis, researchers
\ndiscovered that oxidation was damaging some proteins, throwing the
\nmolecules chemically off balance.<\/p>\n

“When proteins are oxidized they are not functional,” Kobeissy said.
\n“When proteins are not working, the cell cannot function.”<\/p>\n

Neurologist Dr. Jean Lud Cadet, chief of the molecular neuropsychiatry
\nbranch of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said analyzing proteins
\nis important to understanding how drugs such as methamphetamine affect
\nthe brain. <\/p>\n

“I think saying the results of methamphetamine abuse are comparable to
\nthe results of a traumatic brain injury is a new idea,” Cadet said. “I
\nagree with (the findings). Our own work shows that methamphetamine is
\npretty toxic to the brains of animals. In humans, imaging studies of
\npatients who use methamphetamine chronically show abnormalities in the
\nbrain.<\/p>\n

“Abuse of methamphetamine is very dangerous.”<\/p>\n

This research was presented at a Society for Neuroscience conference
\nheld recently in San Diego.<\/p>\n

Source: Science Daily (Nov. 29, 2007)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do suffering a traumatic brain injury and using club drugs have in common? University of Florida researchers say both may trigger a similar chemical chain reaction in the brain, leading to cell death, memory loss and potentially irreversible brain damage. A series of studies at UF over the past five years has shown using […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,41,33,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brain-and-behaviour","category-drug-use-effects-on-foetus","category-ecstasy","category-methamphetamine-ghb-hallucinogens-oxycodone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6052\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}