Giovanni C Santoro, Samarth Shukla, Krishna Patel, Jakub Kaczmarzyk, Stergiani Agorastos, Sandra Scherrer, Yoon Young Choi, Christina Veith, Joseph Carrion, Rebecca Silverman, Danielle Mullin, Mohamed Ahmed, Wynne K Schiffer, Jonathan D Brodie, Stephen L Dewey
The rate of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) has drastically increased over the past decade. The average hospital expense per NAS patient has tripled, while the number of babies born to opioid-dependent mothers has increased to 5 in 1000 births. Current treatment options are limited to opioid replacement and tapering. Consequently, we examined the efficacy of prenatal, low-dose and short-term vigabatrin (γ-vinyl GABA, GVG) exposure for attenuating these symptoms as well as the metabolic changes observed in the brains of these animals upon reaching adolescence...
August 2016: Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy