Psychedelic-Based Cocaine Addiction Treatment Study Showing Positive Results. This Is What We Know

Israeli-Canadian biotech psychedelics developer Clearmind Medicine Inc. CMNDF together with clinical-stage cannabinoid pharma company SciSparc Ltd. SPRC announced that their collaborative study of cocaine addiction treatment with the non-hallucinogenic psychedelic compound MEAI (5-methoxy-2-aminoindane) has shown additional positive pre-clinical results.

The trial was led by Professor Gal Yadid and his team from the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. Its design was set within a self-administration paradigm, the gold-standard model for examining drug addiction based on operant conditioning.

For the study, animals were catheterized and trained to self-administer cocaine. After establishing the addiction model came an extinction phase with no cocaine but psychedelic drug MEAI. The final phase was relapse, where the addicted rats were reminded of the drug with a single administration and then returned to the self-administration habitat without receiving the drug. 

The assumption is that the more an animal yearns to receive the drug, the more it will press on the active pedal.

On this occasion, results identified a subgroup that dramatically responded to the treatment, significantly decreasing cocaine craving compared to the non-treated control group.

The respondent subgroup represents 60% of animals and showed very high responses, both within the group and across the board. Furthermore, this pattern of results aligns with a prior Clearmind study testing the conditioned place-preference paradigm, where a similar subgroup was identified in the context of cocaine preference. 

It should also be noted that this is not the first partnership between the two companies. They have an ongoing combination treatment based on SciSparc’s CannAmide and Clearmind’s MEAI for treating various addictions. They are filing two provisional patent applications related to compositions including MEAI and n-acylethanolamines and uses for treating cocaine addiction.

"We are very excited by these new results which further strengthen our previous results indicating the potential of our proprietary MEAI to treat cocaine addiction,” said Clearmind’s CEO Dr. Adi Zuloff-Shani. 

“As cocaine is extremely addictive and there is currently no dedicated treatment, I believe Clearmind is leading the way in this field. The results, even in this preliminary stage, also show the business impact as we need new and effective therapeutics, and these hold high commercial potential.” 

On his behalf, SciSparc’s CEO Oz Adler referred to both companies’ prior collaborations: "We are excited about these recent results in light of the potential synergistic effect between SciSparc’s CannAmide and Clearmind’s MEAI, as previously demonstrated.

“These results continue to indicate that we may have a targeted treatment for cocaine addiction within our reach, and reinforce our decision to enter a collaboration between the two companies," Adler concluded.

Photo courtesy of Pixabay.