Meth-hooked mice may help humans

• OHSU research group looks at why addiction levels aren’t dropping

By Nick Budnick

The Portland Tribune, Jan 18, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (18 Reader comments)

sARAH TOOR / TRIBUNE PHOTO

OHSU neuroscientist Gregory Mark holds one of his subjects in a study of how meth affects brain function.

Many people can tell you the how, what and when of methamphetamine’s devastating spread across the country.

Gregory Mark, however, is one of relatively few people who can tell you why. He’s on the frontlines of battling meth – but he’s not a cop.

The longtime Oregon Health & Science University neuroscientist studies the mechanics and chemistry of how addicts’ brains respond to drugs. And of all the drugs that are out there, he says meth has a singular ability to take hold of people and make them a slave to their habit.

“We’ve never seen a drug like this,” he said recently in his cramped but busy lab.

Mark is part of a research group called MARC, the Methamphetamine Abuse Research Center. A joint project of OHSU and the Portland VA Medical Center, the assemblage of scientists and doctors is one of five in the country whose meth research is funded by a federal grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Despite being hardly more than a year old, the center already is paying off with significant research in areas that are still largely a mystery, such as treating the underlying cravings of meth abuse, as well as mapping the damage it wreaks to the brain.

“We’re playing around in the dark here,” Mark said. “We have some encouraging results but they’re not finalized yet.”

The efforts of Mark and his colleagues are significant because, although Oregon two years ago adopted some of the most aggressive anti-meth laws in the country, the number of addicts entering treatment has not dropped, and some local drug cops say there is more meth than ever.

“This is a sad commentary, but the price and availability of illicit drugs hasn’t really changed that much since I was in high school,” said Aaron Janowsky, the administrator of the research center. “What that tells you is the dealers are controlling the market. The supply is unregulated; the price is being regulated by the dealers.”

With supply remaining largely uncurbed, Janowsky, Mark and their colleagues at MARC are zeroing in on the human side of the equation, demand – specifically, the brain chemistry and influences that make people susceptible to methamphetamine addiction, as well as to relapse.

What they are finding is that more than with most substances, methamphetamine addicts are subject to impulsiveness. Given a choice between receiving $5 now or $100 in a year’s time, a meth addict almost always will opt for the immediate payoff, said Bill Hoffman, a psychiatrist who works with MARC.

“That’s unusual,” he said.

Quick treatments often fail

Hoffman uses the MARC’s state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging equipment, or MRI, to map out decision-making by looking at which areas of the brain are active during different activities.

It’s hoped that looking at such things will help people not decide to resume using meth.

That’s important, because treatment for meth addicts is notoriously unsuccessful. Some insurer-funded drug rehab programs follow a standard 28-day program used for other addictions – which providers say is completely inadequate to prevent relapse.

Groups that offer longer-term treatment programs, like the Salvation Army’s Adult Rehabilitation Center in Portland, meanwhile, say their problem is lack of space to accommodate those wanting to get in.

So Mark and others are looking at whether pharmacological assistance could help.

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