A drug helpful in treating high blood pressure is now effective in ceasing cocaine and alcohol addiction in animal models. This new research give hopes to millions of addicts around the world. Anti-hypertensive drugs block a particular type of ion channel, which is expressed not only in heart and blood vessels but also in certain brain cells. The researchers found that blocking these ion channels in brain cells, using a drug called isradipine, appears to reverse the rewiring that underlies memories of addiction-associated places. The research is published in the Molecular Psychiatry.
Head and neck cancers affect nearly 50,000 people in the United States each year. The main risk factors include alcohol, smoking and human papillomavirus (HPV), a common sexually transmitted infection that often goes undetected. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have developed a new test that uses blood and saliva to detect head and neck cancers. The research is published in Science Translational Medicine.

