Finding hope in the love hormone

A HORMONE associated with childbirth and breastfeeding could hold the key to treating alcohol and drug addiction and avoiding relapse, experts say.

Sometimes called the ‘‘love hormone’’, oxytocin has an anti-anxiety effect and many studies have examined the role it plays in addiction.

It also influences social behaviour and emotion.

Dr Michael Bowen from the Brain and Mind Centre and School of Psychology at the University of Sydney is leading the research in finding a medicinal way of managing alcohol and opioid addiction.

“Addiction is a brain disorder.

“It changes the way people think, the way they behave, the way their brain and body functions,” Dr Bowen said.

“It’s a tough adversary, but new pharmacological treatments will be a key part of the solution.

“We are hopeful that our work will provide a muchneeded breakthrough.

“You could say it (oxytocin) helps increase the salience of the social world, something that, tragically, often degrades severely for an individual as they develop a chronic substance use disorder.”

In testing the effect of oxytocin during alcohol consumption, Dr Bowen’s team found that rats given a dose of the hormone consume less alcohol.

“It seems to prevent alcohol from hijacking pathways in the brain that mediate alcohol’s rewarding and motivating effects,” he said.

According to the National Alcohol Indicators project, an estimated 5797 Australians aged 15 and over died from alcohol-related causes in 2015.

Alcohol-related hospitalisations from 2012 to 2013 exceeded 144,000 — or 400 people a day.

While oxytocin shows real promise for a range of addictive substances, other treatment options include the compound KNX100 — a novel treatment for opioid withdrawal which Dr Bowen co-invented at the university.

The first ever human clinical trial for the promising drug will begin in early 2021. complex