BLOCKING a brain chemical linked with sleep might help former cocaine-users avoid a relapse.
The idea comes from an experiment on rats that had been addicted to cocaine then weaned off it. When the rats were given infusions of the brain chemical hypocretin-1, and then exposed to the stress of a short electric shock, they became more likely than other animals to go off in search of a fix of cocaine. But if the rats had earlier been give a drug to block the effects of hypocretin-1, the stress did not encourage them to relapse (Proceedings of the National Academy…
