Change Sleep Patterns to Reduce Cocaine Craving?

In an animal study, cocaine withdrawal disrupts sleep, which worsens craving — indicating a possible new treatment avenue.

After withdrawal from cocaine, sleep is disrupted, perhaps contributing to the craving that accompanies withdrawal. To learn more, investigators trained rats to obtain cocaine by poking their noses into a hole in response to a cue (a light).

Animals withdrawing from cocaine had sustained shortened sleep, fewer and shorter rapid eye movement (REM) periods, shortening of non-REM (NREM) episodes, and more awakenings, along with cue-induced cocaine seeking (not explained by forgetting the association between light and cocaine).

During withdrawal, sleep restriction (SR) in darkness (rats, being nocturnal, typically sleep during the day) shifted REM sleep in cocaine-exposed rats to the more typical sleep time (i.e., daytime), with more and longer R…

Reviewing Author

Steven Dubovsky, MD

Disclosures

Grant/Research SupportTower Foundation; Patrick Lee Foundation; Boehringer Ingelheim; Intra-Cellular Therapies; Janssen; Biogen; Allergan

Editorial BoardsMind and Brain; Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic; Current Psychiatry; Journal of Psychosomatic Research

Steven Dubovsky, MD

Disclosures

Grant/Research SupportTower Foundation; Patrick Lee Foundation; Boehringer Ingelheim; Intra-Cellular Therapies; Janssen; Biogen; Allergan

Editorial BoardsMind and Brain; Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic; Current Psychiatry; Journal of Psychosomatic Research

Change Sleep Patterns to Reduce Cocaine Craving?

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Reviewing Author