New evidence in mice that cocaine makes brain cells cannibalize themselves

Now adding more to the growing cocaine-related physical and psychiatric disorders, a new study has come up with startling findings, suggesting the high doses of cocaine can make brain cells eat themselves. With this high-dose study in mouse, the drug is found to become a trigger to its own cells. However, their research has also led to a possible antidote in the experimental compound CGP3466B.

Cocaine can induce brain cells to cannibalize themselves, a new study found. The substance is said to turn a natural mechanism into an uncontrolled process causing the death of cells. “That information gave us immediate insight into how we might use a known compound to interfere with that process and prevent the damage”. Now that the researchers know the truth about cocaine – that it makes brain cells voraciously chow down on themselves, pretty much – they can better search for ways to combat cocaine’s toxic effects. Researchers found signs of autophagy in brain cells of mice.

The process called autophagy is undergone throughout our whole body on a regular basis in order to dispose of unwanted cells or simply dispose of those that have died. Usually it’s a good thing. In 2013, the same team of Johns Hopkins researchers discovered that nitric oxide is involved in cell death that results from exposure to high doses of cocaine. To find out, they made a decision to look at nerve cells from mouse brains for clues.

‘The levels of cocaine we utilized are comparable with cocaine overdose in humans’. A summary of their recent findings will be published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Debris accumulates in bags called vacuoles within the cell, and these are digested by acids created by enzyme-rich lysosomes.

“A cell is like a household that is constantly generating trash”, says Prasun Guha, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins and lead author of the paper. However, cocaine is the housekeeper that can throw away irrelevant things such as mitochondria that produces energy for the cell. The drug is already known to be safe in humans because it has been tested in phase 2 trials of its (unsuccessful) effect on Parkinson’s disease and ALS.

The team of researchers also tested the ability of the compound CGP3466B to disrupt nitric oxide/GAPDH interactions and halt cocaine-induced autophagy.

The team tested other chemicals, but only CGP3466B protected nerve cells in the brain from death by cocaine.

Professor Snyder is hoping that their team’s work can lead to eventual treatments that will protect infants and adults from the highly destructive effects of cocaine on the brain.