Addiction biology
September 1, 2006
David H Overstreet, Amir H Rezvani, Michael Cowen et al.
19 citations
The Fawn-Hooded rat (FH/Wjd) is an inbred strain that naturally consumes high amounts of alcohol (over 5 g/kg/day) with a preference above 65%. Unlike selectively bred alcohol-preferring strains, this strain was chosen due to a serotonin platelet abnormality, but breeding experiments showed that the high alcohol intake is unrelated to that serotonin defect. Many compounds tested in these rats reduce alcohol intake, including amperozide, MTEP, ibogaine, St. John's wort, and kudzu extract. However, tolerance can develop to some drugs like opiate antagonists, possibly due to up-regulation of opioid receptors. This tolerance also appears in selectively bred alcohol-preferring rats, raising questions about its role in relapse among people treated with naltrexone. The broad range of effective compounds suggests diverse targets for developing new alcoholism treatments.
BMJ open
June 27, 2025
Sijia Xia, Feng Chen, Wenju Wang et al.
This registered clinical trial protocol describes a four-arm, assessor-blind randomized controlled trial that will test whether combining aerobic exercise with meditation produces greater improvements in physical and cognitive function for people with cognitive frailty than either practice alone. Cognitive frailty is the simultaneous presence of physical frailty and cognitive impairment without dementia. One hundred forty qualified participants will be randomly assigned to aerobic exercise, meditation, combined aerobic exercise and meditation, or a health education control group for 12 weeks. Primary outcome is the Edmonton Frailty Scale; secondary outcomes include cognitive tests, physical performance, subjective experiences, brain MRI measures, and blood biomarkers. Assessments occur at baseline and after the intervention.
Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry letters
March 1, 2009
Lu Yang, Wei Xu, Feng Chen et al.
Salvinorin A, the main active ingredient of Salvia divinorum, is a potent and selective kappa-opioid receptor agonist. A series of C-12 triazole analogs and an oxadiazole analog were synthesized and tested for binding affinity at kappa, mu, and delta opioid receptors. Surprisingly, all triazole analogs showed negligible binding affinity at opioid receptors, and the oxadiazole analog, previously reported as a mu and kappa opioid receptor antagonist, exhibited very low affinities and no antagonism in the binding assays. These results suggest that electronic factors affecting either the electron density of a hydrogen bond acceptor at C-12 or hydrophobic interactions between the C-12 moiety and the kappa-opioid receptor are critical for C-12 analog affinity.