An astounding 5-6% of people who began using cocaine 24 hours ago will become long-term users, according to a paper in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. Addiction varies with each person’s individual brain chemistry, but the presence of dopamine in the brain is a highly rewarding feeling that most people will work to replicate.

 

Chronic cocaine use often damages and changes the brain’s prefrontal cortex (PFC), including significant brain volume reduction, impairment in functioning, and other debilitating effects.

Cocaine use disorder (CUD) represents a significant health problem and is very common worldwide, with about 14–21 million users in 2014. In spite of the significant distress associated with cocaine use, no effective pharmacological or psychological therapies had been identified to treat cocaine addiction.

Published December 3rd 2015 in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology, a small study suggests that TMS may offer the first therapeutic treatment for cocaine addiction.

Patients in the study underwent eight treatments of TMS, electromagnetic pulses to the prefrontal cortex (PFC).  Though the study’s findings are preliminary, cocaine addicted patients reported fewer cravings for cocaine after the eight treatment sessions.

“Addiction is a brain disease, not so different from schizophrenia and not so different from diabetes,” said study co-author Dr. Lorenzo Leggio, chief of clinical psychoneuroendocrinology and neuropsychopharmacology at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. “One reason we are excited about these findings is that this could open up the possibility for the first time to have a biological basis for a treatment to help patients with cocaine addiction.”

Read the story below by clicking the link:

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/tms/2016/05/tms-and-chronic-cocaine-use-addiction/