Recovery Michigan

To date, there are not particularly effective therapies for AUD, with only three FDA approved drugs along with behavioral modification programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Together or alone, none are particularly effective and relapse is common, making the development of new therapies vital.

A collaborative effort between Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) researchers Susan Bergeson, Ph.D., Joseé Guindon, Ph.D., Peter Syapin, Ph.D., clinicians David Edwards, M.D., David Trotter, Ph.D., and Deborah Finn, Ph.D., at Oregon Health and Science University has identified a potential new treatment for AUD.

"Recent research has used new technologies to identify genes and pathways related to neuroinflammation as part of alcohol's action on addiction processes," said Bergeson, associate professor in the TTUHSC Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience. "Minocycline, a tetracycline antibiotic normally used against bacterial infections, has known anti-inflammatory actions and recently was shown to reduce alcohol consumption."

In research described in four companion papers published by the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, the teams first reported the screening of several tetracycline drugs to see if all were effective in reducing alcohol use. The results pointed to a specific structural component of the drugs as responsible for positive outcomes and led to the discovery that tigecycline, a minocycline analog, was highly effective in reducing binge and chronic consumption, in both dependent and non-dependent animals.