Hormonal fluctuations make women more sensitive to addictive properties of cocaine, study reveals
Published on January 11, 2017 at 5:42 AM ยท No Comments
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Hormonal fluctuations women undergo make them particularly sensitive, compared to men, to the addictive properties of cocaine, according to a study conducted at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published January 10 in the journal Nature Communications.
The Mount Sinai research team discovered that estrogen intensifies the brain's dopamine reward pathway and demonstrated that cocaine has its most potent effects during the estrous/menstrual cycle, when release of estrogen is at its highest. Their research suggests that a possible addiction intervention could be to adjust this hormonal cycle through use of birth control pills or a similar strategy.
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20170111/Hormonal-fluctuations-make-women-more-sensitive-to-addictive-properties-of-cocaine-study-reveals.aspx
