Easing Withdrawal (Fall 1996)
Two Carolina researchers have found a substance that may help prevent alcohol dependency.
Leslie Morrow and Leslie Devaud, scientists at the Skipper Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, have identified a neurosteroid--a chemical signal affecting nerves--that relieves withdrawal symptoms in alcohol-dependent rats.
The neurosteroid allopregnanolone has a calming effect in normal rats, but Devaud, a research assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry, found that alcohol-dependent rats respond to much lower doses.
"This increased sensitivity suggests that the neurosteroid might be an effective treatment for alcohol withdrawal--even better than the ones we have now," says Morrow, an associate professor of psychiatry.
One problem with the current medications is that patients become tolerant to the treatment as they become tolerant to alcohol. Because allopregnanolone has the opposite effect--rats become more sensitive to it as they become tolerant to alcohol--it is potentially a safer and more effective treatment.
In fact, Morrow thinks the neurosteroid may play a protective role. The levels of allopregnanolone are higher in women than in men, while the rate of alcoholism is lower in women. In addition, women's levels of the neurosteroid, and their drinking habits, fluctuate during the menstrual cycle.
If continued research confirms these ideas, Devaud and Morrow may have uncovered the brain's intrinsic defense against alcohol dependence: the changes created by alcohol consumption make the brain more receptive to a chemical signal that reduces the motivation to drink.
Morrow and Devaud were supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and by the Governor's Institute on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, and Morrow recently has been awarded a gift from The Foundation of Hope to measure allopregnanolone levels in human alcoholics.
—Elizabeth Zubritsky