从源头驱散毒瘾

Powerful chemical countermeasures could one day enter the battle against opioid addiction, which killed more than 42,000 people in the United States in 2016.

有效的化学反制品将来可能会进入对抗毒品成瘾的战役，2016年吸毒成瘾在美国害死了42,000人。

Doctors and first responders already use medications to combat the effects of opioids, including the high and the slowed breathing of an overdose.

医生和急救人员已经在使用药物来对抗鸦片类药物的后果，包括吸毒致嗨和过量吸毒带来的呼吸减缓。

But the new candidate drugs target the neural circuitry of addiction itself.

不过新的候选药物针对的是成瘾本身的神经回路。

A compound known as OV329 is the latest addition.

一种叫做OV329的化合物是最新的添加剂。

In animal studies it quiets the brain's reward system, sharply reducing cravings and halting addicted animals' tendency to self-administer cocaine and other habit-forming drugs.

在动物实验中，它可以使大脑的奖励系统静息，大大减少对毒品的渴望，并停止上瘾动物自己使用可卡因的和其他成瘾性毒品的倾向。

Other drugs in the pipeline also target the reward system, albeit through a different mechanism.

其他的候选药物也是针对这种奖励系统，不过是通过不同的机制。

All raise hopes that doctors could soon have a new way to treat addiction, and not just to drugs and alcohol.

所有这一切都给人们带来了希望将来医生们就可以有新方法来治疗成瘾了，而且不仅仅是对药物和酒精成瘾。

The medicines could potentially also be used to fight food and gambling addictions.

这种药品还可能用来对抗对食物或者赌博的瘾。

"It's a great unmet medical need," says Richard Silverman, a chemist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who developed OV329.

“这是一种很大的医学需求，”理查德.西尔弗曼说，他是伊利诺伊州埃文斯顿的西北大学的化学家，也是OV329的研发者。

OV329 has now been picked up by Ovid Therapeutics in New York City, which is continuing animal studies and hopes to launch human trials of the would-be drug.

目前，OV329已经在纽约市的奥维德治疗中心(Ovid Therapeutics)上获得通过，该疗法正在继续进行动物实验，并希望对这种可能的药物进行人体试验。

"It's a very interesting compound and clearly very promising," says Andrea Hohmann, a neuroscientist at Indiana University in Bloomington who is not involved in the work.

“这是一种有趣的化合物，非常有前景，”安德里亚.霍曼说，她是布鲁明顿的印第安纳大学的神经科学家，并非本次研究的参与者。

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