Two studies of how brain cells process cocaine, amphetamines and antidepressants could contribute to the development of targeted medication treatments for addictions, including possibly a new direction for anti-cocaine therapy, ScienceDaily reported July 31.

Research teams from Weill Cornell Medical College and Columbia University Medical Center have described in detail the structure of drug targets called neurotransmitter-sodium symporters and how cells use them to enable neural signaling in the brain. They also have been able to pinpoint where drug molecules bind in the human nervous system, concluding among other findings that cocaine binds deep into the dopamine transporter and thus presents a challenge in terms of the development of anti-cocaine therapies.

The mechanisms involved with cocaine binding led the researchers to conclude that treatments interfering with cocaine binding also run the risk of interfering with the binding of natural messengers in the brain. "This finding might steer anti-cocaine therapy in a completely new direction," said Harel Weinstein, Ph.D., director of the Institute for Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.

With only 15 percent of all drugs having a known molecular method of action, molecular analysis at the level of detail described in the new studies presents a significant breakthrough. The researchers believe their work also holds promise for development of more effective therapies for dopamine-neurotransmitter disorders such as schizophrenia, mood disorders and Parkinson's disease.

Results of the studies are published in the journals Molecular Cell and Nature Neuroscience.