She said that in earlier work with the drug, it was found to be the most potent competitor for binding sites of cocaine, and also the best choice for radiolabeling.

"It was a natural," she said.

Therapeutic Goals

Bergman said that the results of their research so far may have several therapeutic uses, for cocaine addicts as well as victims of Parkinson's disease.

Drugs used during the research, many of which were similar in structure or chemical actions to cocaine, could be used to combat the effects of cocaine addiction, Bergman said, because such drugs block the dopamine signal, and thus the ability of cocaine to bind to the transport system.

In addition, Spealman said, cocaine agonists--chemicals that compete for the binding sites of the drug--could be used to alleviate withdrawal symptoms without themselves being addictive.

"These drugs could be used in a similar way to methadone for heroin addicts," Spealman said.

And because cocaine and CFT act on pre-synaptic dopamine neurons, the same neurons that are lost in Parkinson's disease, CFT "may be usable as a marker for Parkinson's," Madras said.

Upon investigation of CFT binding in postmortem tissue in Parkinson's and normal brain tissue, it was found that CFT did indeed affect those areas with large numbers of pre-synaptic neurons.

"It was quite exciting," Madras said, referring to the discovery of CFT's potential for use in Parkinson's research.

Integrated Efforts Praised

The three team leaders all expressed satisfaction at the success in integrating the different aspects of the research.

"The key thing is a coordinated way" of research, Bergman said.

"You get a clearer picture of the effects of cocaine" when the neurochemistry and behavioral aspects of the drug are combined, he added.

Madras also praised the variation in skills and experience of the three teams of the project.

"One of the beauties of a big collaborative group is that it can make an enormous amount of progress as a team," she said.

"Everyone came in with a different set of backgrounds," she added. "It was enormously enjoyable."