14 DAY TRIAL // Endorphins are a class of neurotransmitters made up of endogenous opioid peptides that act directly on areas of the brain that are responsible for making us feel pleasure and rewards. Whenever we consume alcohol, these areas light up on brain scans, demonstrating increased activity.
This finding is very important towards understanding why alcoholics find such pleasure in drinking, even if this eventually leads to them losing their jobs, families, friends and so on. It is impossible to fight an addiction without knowing how it acts, and why.
The investigation was carried out by researchers at the University of California in San Francisco's (UCSF) Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center. The group discovered that areas of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens and the orbitofrontal cortex are the primary targets of endorphin release.
This investigation is the first ever to demonstrate that such a release occurs in the human brain as well. “This is something that we’ve speculated about for 30 years, based on animal studies, but haven’t observed in humans until now,” says Jennifer Mitchell, PhD.
“It provides the first direct evidence of how alcohol makes people feel good,” adds the scientist, who holds an appointment as an UCSF assistant professor of neurology, and is also the clinical project director at the Gallo Center.
Now that scientists know precisely where endorphins act on the human brain, it may become possible for them to create new drugs that would target these exact regions, preventing this neurotransmitter from being released, PsychCentral reports.
This would cause the association that forms between alcohol intake and experiencing pleasure and reward to dwindle in intensity, therefore potentially making conventional therapies even more effective.
The new data were collected as researchers conducted positron emission tomography (PET) scans on the brains of 13 heavy drinkers and 12 control subjects. The team found that more endorphin in the nucleus accumbens led to increased levels of self-reported pleasure.
“This indicates that the brains of heavy or problem drinkers are changed in a way that makes them more likely to find alcohol pleasant, and may be a clue to how problem drinking develops in the first place. That greater feeling of reward might cause them to drink too much,” Howard L. Fields, MD, PhD.
The expert is a professor of neurology and the Endowed Chair in Pharmacology of Addiction in Neurology at the university, and also the director of human clinical research at the Gallo Center.
Details of the new study and its conclusions were published in the latest issue of the top journal Science Translational Medicine.