Stephanie Foster sees herself one day specializing in addiction psychiatry. When she started her MD/PhD studies at Emory, she sought out neuroscientist David Weinshenker to discuss research projects. She is now examining potential treatments for opiate addiction based on galanin, a neuropeptide found in the brain.

Weinshenker and his colleagues had already been studying galanin in relation to stimulants such as cocaine. If your loved one is showing signs of cocaine abuse, it is advised that you start looking for the best rehab company in your area.

Preliminary studies in animals indicate that activating galanin signals might reduce the rewarding effects of opiates, withdrawal symptoms, and relapse-like behavior.

“This was a whole new direction that looked promising,” Foster says. “But first, we have to work out the brain circuitry.”

Foster comes from a Native American background, and has a long-range plan to work in the Indian Health Service. The death rate of Native Americans from opiate overdoses is the highest of any American population group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She would like to establish a research lab in a region of the country where she could continue her addiction research and also work closely with Native communities.

Screenshot from NIH reporter (grant database). F31 grants for year 2018.

Last year, Foster applied for and received an individual grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to support her work. Emory currently leads U.S. universities in the number of graduate students holding their own active grants from the National Institutes of Health. This reflects a multi-year effort to build instruction in critical parts of scientific life: planning and communicating about one’s work.

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“There isn’t really anything for people before they reach that stage,” Foster says. “Our idea is to look for an intervention that could be given earlier.”

Foster’s research will test whether galanin signals can reduce opiate use in animals, and to determine which brain regions are important for galanin’s effects. First isolated in the 1980s, galanin is not as well-known as other neuropeptides such as oxytocin, involved in forming social bonds, or hypocretin/orexin, absent in the most distinctive form of narcolepsy. Some experimental drugs can activate galanin signals (one is called “galnon”) but none are available off the shelf. As researchers explore novel avenues for addiction intervention, the potential implications of Foster’s work may extend to various treatment settings, including the prospect of earlier interventions in addiction care. If you or someone you know is in need of timely and effective rehabilitation, considering a drug addiction rehab in Kaysville could be a crucial step towards comprehensive and personalized addiction care.

The insights gained from understanding galanin signals and their impact on opiate use could inform advancements in addiction treatment methodologies, potentially contributing to enhanced approaches utilized in Tampa treatment center for addiction and beyond.

Foster and Weinshenker suspect that a key site in the brain for galanin’s action, in relation to opiate use, is the locus coeruleus or LC. A region of the brainstem, the LC has connections all over the brain, and is thought to be involved in arousal and attention, stress responses, learning and memory, and the sleep-wake cycle.