Drug to help drinkers

AUSTRALIAN researchers have identified an anti-anxiety drug that could potentially reverse the damage caused to the brain by alcohol abuse.

Alcohol abuse and addiction is characterised by extended periods of heavy alcohol use, binges and abstinence, as well as anxiety and depression, which contribute to relapse.

The findings showed that tandospirone can help our brains reboot and reverse the damage to brain cells caused by heavy alcohol consumption.

“Tandospirone is available only in China and Japan. It is commonly used there and has been shown to be highly effective in treating general anxiety and is well tolerated with limited adverse effects,” said Arnauld Belmer, a post-doctoral research student at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia.

In the study, published in Scientific Reports, adult mice who underwent two weeks of daily treatment with tandospirone saw a reduction in anxiety-like behaviours associated with alcohol withdrawal.

The drug reversed the effects of 15 weeks of binge-like alcohol consumption on neurogenesis – the ability of the brain to grow and replace neurons (brain cells).

This was also accompanied by a significant decrease in binge-like alcohol intake.

“This is a novel discovery that tandospirone can reverse the deficit in neurogenesis caused by alcohol,” said lead author Professor Selena Bartlett, of Queensland University of Technology.

The study also opens the way to look at if neurogenesis is associated with other substance-abuse deficits, such as in memory and learning, and whether this compound can reverse these. Bartlett said: “Tandospirone is not just another drug that shows promise in helping to reduce binge drinking. It might be able to help reboot the brain and reverse the deficits the alcohol abuse causes – both the inhibition to the brain’s ability to regenerate and the behavioural consequences of what alcohol is doing to the brain, like increases in anxiety and depression.”