Addictions Treatment and Rehab Centres in Okehampton

AddictionAdvisor^TM is a professional addictions healthcare company focused on providing you with high quality expert advice, information, care planning and treatment for addiction problems, wherever you live in the UK.

All advice is provided completely free-of-charge by our expert assessment team.  Led by a consultant addiction psychiatrist, the assessment team consists of nurses, doctors, counsellors and psychologists who work together to bring you the best advice, treatment and value available.

Addictions Rehab Centres in Okehampton

Call 0845 370 0102 Now for Full Details

Addictions Advisor's highly trained professionals can give you advice on which addiction treatment center is most appropriate for your need. This is done based on clinical need. Unlike various non-professional rehab ‘referral agents’ operating on the internet, all Addiction Advisor advice is provided by a highly qualified assessment team which specializes in considering the full range of treatment options available.

The website DryOutNow.com has specific information on alcohol treatment and alcoholism in the south west of England.

Addictions information

Mechanism behind Cocaine Craving Identified

A possible future way to prevent relapses into drug dependence has been discovered by researchers at Linköping University and the German cancer research center DKFZ. The target is the dopamine-producing nerve cells in the midbrain.

Earlier research has shown that these cells become more excitable when a person takes drugs. To find out the functional meaning of this, these researchers used a mouse model for cocaine dependence. When they blocked the cells' receptors for glutamate ¬- the brain's most important signal substance -¬ the risk of relapsing into addiction vanished. The findings are being published in Neuron.

Dopamine-producing nerve cells are central to the brain's reward system. Dependence-inducing drugs cause concentrations of dopamine to rise in the surroundings, which in turn affects other nerve cells and brings about various physical and mental reactions.

Cocaine has a very rapid impact on dopamine levels, which explains why it is one of the most addictive drugs.

"When you take cocaine, the number of glutamate receptors increases, rendering the cell more excitable. When we block this process, we prevent relapses into addiction. This is interesting clinically since that is the phase when we can get hold of patients," says David Engblom, a neurobiologist at Linköping University and the study's lead author.

An addict who wants to give up drugs could thus be offered a ‘vaccination' against relapsing. But much more research remains to be done before such treatment can become a reality.

Reference: David Engblom et al. 'Glutamate Receptors on Dopamine Neurons Control the Persistence of Cocaine-Seeking', Neuron, August 14, 2008

Article originally published on 06/08/2008 by DryOutNow.com, the alcohol specific website for Addiction Advisor.

DryOutNow.com specialises in alcohol help for those in Okehampton and Addictions Advisor handles all types of addiction for those in Okehampton .

Addictions Advice for other areas of the UK

AddictionAdvisor supply professional addictions advice throughout all the UK, including:

Addictions Help London   |   Addictions Help Glasgow   |   Addictions Advice Edinburgh   |   Addictions Advice Manchester   |   Addictions Help Birmingham   |   Addictions Advice Cardiff   |   Addictions Help Liverpool   |   Addictions Advice Exeter   |   Addictions Help Plymouth   |