Cocaine addiction leads to build-up of iron in brain
Cocaine is one of the most widely-used illicit drugs i n the Western world and is highly addictive. A report last year by the UK government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs found that almost one in 10 of all 16-to 59-year-olds have used cocaine in their lifetime. Cocaine use was implicated in, but not necessarily the cause of 234 deaths in Scotland, England and Wales in 2013. However, despite significant advances in our understanding of the biology of addiction -- including how the brains of people addicted to cocaine may differ in structure -- there is currently no medical treatment for cocaine addiction; most individuals are treated with talking or cognitive therapies. A team of researchers led by Dr Karen Ersche from the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge examined brain tissue in 44 people who were addicted to cocaine and 44 healthy control volunteers. In the cocaine group, they detected excessive amounts of iron in a region of the brain known as the globus pal...