14 DAY TRIAL // This August 29, researchers released an image showing how cocaine disrupts blood flow in the brain. The picture, available next to this article, is said to be the first of its kind.
Writing in the journal Biomedical Optics Express, specialists detail that the brain featured in this image belongs to a laboratory mouse that was administered cocaine for several days in a row.
Repeated exposure to this drug first caused the rodent to experience a drastic drop in blood flow speed. Eventually, blood flow in certain regions of the brain was completely shut down.
As explained by Phys Org, this image and others of its kind are expected to shed new light on why it is that people who use and abuse cocaine and other similar drugs are more vulnerable to aneurysm-like bleeding and strokes.
“We show that quantitative flow imaging can provide a lot of useful physiological and functional information that we haven't had access to before,” researcher Yingtian Pan with Stony Brook University in the US said in a statement.
Specialists believe that, in time, a better understanding of how drugs toy with the brain's anatomy could translate into the development of better treatment options for people who want to kick the habit.