An international team of researchers is trying to find new ways to prevent opioid dependency by inhibiting the brain pathways involved in addiction – the brain’s ‘reward circuitry’. Led by the University of Glasgow and backed by a £5m grant from the Wellcome Trust, the team also includes researchers from the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery at Vanderbilt University in the US.
The researchers will use ‘genetic and drug-discovery techniques to try to answer the longstanding question: can we have the pain relief of opioids without the addiction risk?’ says Glasgow University. The team will focus on using new ‘drug-like molecules’ to inhibit a brain protein called the M5-receptor, one of the G protein-coupled receptors – a group of proteins that respond to opioids and other substances.
Preliminary data has already shown that inhibiting the M-5 receptor in mice ‘significantly reduces’ addiction to prescription opioids, the researchers say, while still maintaining their pain relief benefits and, ‘remarkably’, reducing the risk of relapse. The team aims to progress the research by ‘revealing the fundamental biology of the M5-receptor’ to discover breakthrough therapeutic approaches that could help prevent addiction, it says.
‘We are tremendously excited to be given the funds for this international collaboration that will make a major impact in resolving the opioid crisis,’ said professor of molecular pharmacology at the University of Glasgow, Andrew Tobin. ‘We believe that developing new medicines that inhibit the M5-receptor, which can be taken alongside prescribed opioids, will be the key to the safe use of opioid analgesics.’
‘The opioid crisis is lived out on the streets of Glasgow every day,’ said CEO of homelessness charity Glasgow City Mission Charles Maasz. ‘Any new ways to reduce those that lose their homes, families and jobs through this terrible affliction are hugely welcome. We at Glasgow City Mission are delighted to be one of the organisations named in this grant to help in this important research.’
Last year, DHSC announced that 11 projects exploring the use of AI, wearable technology and virtual reality to help people overcome triggers for drug use and alert emergency services and naloxone carriers in the event of an overdose could be rolled out if they proved successful.