Brain Teasers

​Each story in these these short, topic-focused press packs for the Society of Neuroscience’s December annual meeting was like solving a puzzle. My two assignments were new opioid-addiction research and advances using new stem cell and gene-editing techniques. Not that I didn’t expect it, but I was sad that my suggested analogy to a benign Clockwork Orange scenario didn’t make the final cut on the incredible “memory treatments” research on addiction. Too dark? Guess so. 

A novel procedure to “erase” drug memories reduces drug cravings and relapses in individuals addicted to heroin and undergoing methadone maintenance treatment, according to research released today.... “These findings demonstrate that using methadone as part of a memory-treatment strategy may be a promising method for decreasing long-term drug cravings and relapses in people recovering from heroin and other substance-use disorders,” said lead author Ping Wu, MD, of Peking University.

---