UCLA Health Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences faculty members Dara Ghahremani and Edythe London have been selected to join a global team of experts to research innovative approaches to diagnose, treat, and prevent addiction disorders. Ghahremani and London, who are affiliated with The Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, will serve as co-principal investigators in the Untangling Addiction program initiated by the nonprofit health research organization Wellcome Leap this year. This three-year, $50 million project involves 13 other collaborating universities and organizations with the goal of developing novel ways to quantify addiction risk and progression through biomarkers.
The UCLA team will lead the first large-scale investigation of the habenula, a brain nucleus associated with negative states experienced during withdrawal. Although this region has shown strong connections to addiction in animal studies, it has not been adequately studied in humans. By evaluating MRI data from thousands of individuals with problematic alcohol use, the team aims to determine if similar relationships exist in humans. If they find those links, the habenula could be an important therapeutic neural target. For instance, the team proposes using a relatively new noninvasive brain stimulation technique known as low-intensity focused ultrasound to temporarily modify habenula function during periods of alcohol withdrawal, thus alleviating symptoms and reducing vulnerability to continued drug use.