WEDNESDAY, April 3, 2013 — Controlling cocaine addiction might lie in the flip of a switch and in the beam of a light. Both appear to have worked in rats, at least, according to new research published today in Nature.

Using lasers to inhibit neural activity in the brains of rats successfully cured the rodents of addictive behavior, scientists found. And it caused rats who weren't previously addicted to seek out cocaine, providing further evidence that light — and special proteins — can change the course of addiction.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) implanted light sensitive proteins into neurons located in rats' prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain responsible for impulse control, decision-making and behavioral adaptability.

The scientists found that when a laser light was used to activate the proteins, rats who had been previously addicted to cocaine were measurably less interested in seeking out the drug.

"When we turn on a laser light in the prelimbic region of the prefrontal cortex, the compulsive cocaine seeking is gone," said Antonello Bonci, MD, UCSF adjunct professor of neurology and scientific director of the intramural research program at the NIH's National Institute of Drug Abuse, in a press release.

"This is the first study to show a cause-and-effect relationship between cocaine-induced brain deficits in the prefrontal cortex and compulsive cocaine-seeking," said Billy Chen, PhD, lead study author from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), in a press release. "These results provide evidence for a cocaine-induced deficit within a brain region that is involved in disorders characterized by poor impulse control, including addiction."

The study findings may have implications for treatment of human cocaine addiction, researchers said. The scientists said they won't use lasers in planned human clinical trials, but instead will use electromagnetic stimulation — similar to that used to treat depression — to target the prefrontal cortex on the human brain with hopes of similar anti-addiction results.

"This exciting study offers a new direction of research for the treatment of cocaine and possibly other addictions," said Nora D. Volkow, MD, NIDA director, in a press release. "We already knew, mainly from human brain imaging studies, that deficits in the prefrontal cortex are involved in drug addiction. Now that we have learned how fundamental these deficits are, we feel more confident than ever about the therapeutic promise of targeting that part of the brain."

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 1.4 million Americans age 12 and older abused cocaine in 2011, an addiction problem often associated with lost jobs and wages, crime, prison time, police investigations, and intervention programming. Not only is cocaine use responsible for elevated frequency in emergency room visits, it is also one of the leading causes behind heart attacks and strokes for people under 35.