古柯鹼：說服腦細胞自殺

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http://www.aol.com/article/2016/01/19/cocaine-makes-your-brain-cells-eat-themselves/21299455/?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00001370

Cocaine makes your brain cells eat themselves

High doses of cocaine can convince some brain cells to kill themselves, according to a new study. Although the phenomenon has only been recorded in mouse cells.

"We performed 'autopsies' to find out how cells die from high doses of cocaine," said Dr. Solomon Snyder, professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University and coauthor on the study. "That information gave us immediate insight into how we might use a known compound to interfere with that process and prevent the damage." Cells are occasionally supposed to kill themselves; to fold up and die for the greater good. One form of cell suicide, known as apoptosis, actually forms our fingers, when the cells in the webbing between our digits die off during early development. Similar cell suicide processes can encourage malformed, malfunctioning cells to die before they cause tumors—when that system breaks, we call it "cancer."

But when healthy brain cells die before their time, that's a problem. Researchers found that cocaine can trigger one destructive cell suicide processes, known as autophagy, in mice. "A cell is like a household that is constantly generating trash," said Prasun Guha, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow at Hopkins and coauthor on the study, in a prepared statement. "Autophagy is the housekeeper that takes out the trash—it's usually a good thing. But cocaine makes the housekeeper throw away really important things, like mitochondria, which produce energy for the cell."