Deep Brain Stimulation In The Treatment Of Cocaine Addiction

Abstract

The history of cocaine addiction as a considerable public health issue has remained more than a century. In recent decades, as the population of cocaine addicts has risen again, more external interventions, such as neurotechnology, medication, and psychological therapy, are being considered and discovered as tools to address the effectiveness of the issue. Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) has emerged as a potential intervention as existing treatments are limited to managing and healing cocaine addiction effectively. This paper delves into the multifaceted relationship between cocaine addiction and DBS, drawing insights based on neurobiological functions and existing experiments in rodent models. While DBS has been given expectation in targeting addiction-related neural circuits such as rewarding systems, its effectiveness and safety in decreasing cocaine craving remains a critical topic. This paper also emphasizes the caution of translating the results of preclinical experiments into clinical applications. In an era when innovative therapeutic strategies are urgently needed, this article explores the intricate promise of DBS in the treatment of cocaine addiction, providing a balanced perspective on its potential and challenges in reshaping addiction therapies. The purpose of the paper is to make the process of overcoming cocaine addiction easier using neurotechnology, specifically deep brain stimulation, and furthermore, to reduce the population of cocaine users in the United States.