Study Pinpoints Cognitive Deficits Due to Cocaine, Finds Potential for Recovery
A lack of effective medications to treat cocaine addiction means that the current best hope for recovery is behavioral therapy, in which people learn to ignore the cues that trigger their drug craving and to establish new habits that provide healthy rewards. New research by Dr. Michael A. Nader, Dr. Robert W. Gould, and colleagues at Wake Forest School of Medicine, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, suggests that the brain’s capacity for this type of learning is compromised during the initial days and weeks of cocaine abstinence, but may return to normal thereafter. The Wake Forest team