Will beta-carboline get rid of alcoholism?

 

The test results already say that the new substance significantly reduces the consumption of alcohol by rats, and we can also talk about certain positive results obtained for primates (no tests have been conducted on humans yet).

In the course of the new work, the researchers tried to develop a new way of treating alcoholism that would be devoid of undesirable side effects that manifest themselves when using traditional medications, the action of which is simply aimed at lowering the content of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is one of the chemical factors of internal reinforcement and serves as an important part of the brain's "reward system", since it causes a feeling of pleasure (or satisfaction). Traditional drugs derived from opioid antagonists often cause depression and can themselves cause addiction.

As explained (in the press release of ACS New compounds could reduce alcoholics’ impulse to drink - VM), who reported the results of the work at the 250th conference of the American Chemical Society, Phani Babu Tiruveedhula (Phani Babu Tiruveedhula), lowering the dopamine content in the blood leads to the development of anhedonia – the inability to feel a normal sense of joy. Such side effects are not observed for the drug, which appeared as a result of a new research work – its action is not aimed at dopamine, but at specific receptors that recognize alcohol in the brain.

The most promising drug turned out to be carboline 3-ISOPBC•HCl (see structural formula – VM), which demonstrated good results as a means of treating binge drinking in rats. Researchers from Milwaukee observed the frequency with which adult experimental rats turn to alcohol for 2 hours and found that during the experiment, rats pressed the lever for an hour on average, allowing them to pour a dose of alcohol into the drinker 55 times when consuming the drug 3-ISOPBC•HCl at a dosage of 20 mg/kg, those on those who were tested with a dose of 3-ISOPBC•HCl 40 mg / kg, turned to alcohol on average 15 times in two hours, and those who were injected with a placebo sought solace in alcohol more often than once a minute by pressing the lever of the "alcohol dispenser" 145 times.Preliminary tests on primates, which scientists from the University of Wisconsin are conducting jointly with Johns Hopkins Hospital there in Maryland, show that if there is free access to alcohol for again two hours, 3-ISOPBC•HCl reduces alcohol consumption by primates by about 90%.

It is expected that the experiments with primates will be completed in five months and published in about a year. If all goes well, the treatment of alcoholism with carboline (which, as experiments show, does not have a side effect on the human body) will be tested on humans.

According to the researchers, the introduction of a new drug to the market may take from five to six years, while the new drug will be somewhat cheaper than existing "anti-slaughter" drugs, since chemists from Milwaukee managed to optimize the synthesis of this carboline, reducing the number of synthetic stages from five to two.

Nevertheless, as James Cook, an adviser to the University of Wisconsin, explains, researchers still have a lot of work to do in order to demonstrate that their drug is not toxic to the body, as well as to establish the characteristics of its assimilation by the body.

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01.09.2015