Biological Basis and Treatment of Psychological Active Substance

The range of human diseases is being changed. In the first half of 20th century, the major diseases were inflammatory diseases; in the second half of 20th century, body diseases became dominated. In 21st century, the incidence of psychological disorders will increase gradually. In all the psychological disorders, dependence of psychological active substances is one of the most common diseases. WHO pointed out in last century that dependence is one kind of chronic brain disorders. In our country, opioid is one of the most important psychological active substances, however, the spread of amphetamine is the quickest among the common dependent substances in recent years.There are two features for any organisms, the first is the desire to feel pleasant and the other is to avoid unhappiness. Administration of psychological active substances is able to make addicts feel pleasant, while to stop usage of them induce unhappiness after abstinence. For a long time people could not break away from the perplex of psychological substances. The investigation on the biological basis of psychological substances would benefit not only to the prevention of drug abuse, but also to understand the essence of psychological activities of human beings. Based on this importance, many scientists throw much energy into the field. We can notice the research works on drug dependence are in the forward field of neuro-biology and molecular biology. With the cooperation of the institutes that have good basis for scientific research on this field, the project is aimed to understand the individual and general character of psychological dependence on opioids and amphetamines. By the genomic and proteomic techniques, we will try to investigate the changes of gene and protein on the conditions of naive, dependence and relapse. At the receptor level, we hope to gain further understanding on the relationship between the structure and function of opioid receptors, and to learn more about the modulation of neuron and body fluid at the pre-receptor level on psychological dependence. At the post-receptor level, we want to find new special factors during the signal transduction process and the abnormal expression of genes, to further explain the characteristic of psychological dependence and relapse. In addition, we may interpret the modulation of opioid receptors and non-opioid receptors on psychological dependence and relapse and we may find new method to prevent the development of dependence and relapse. Based on the study, we may get more information between learning, memory and the process of dependence on psychological active substances. Based on the research of comparative biology, we hope to give better understanding on the essence of psychological dependence for human being by the results of in vitro and in vivo experiments. In the area of applied and basic research on Chinese and western medicine and drugs, we will try to develop drugs and apparatus not only at the receptor and pre-receptor levels, but at the post-receptor and inter-receptor as well, so that we can improve the ability to prevent and treat the dependence and relapse and now we have already got definite basis on this area. We are sure we will obtain new findings and gain more international influence based on such a comprehensive project with clear aim, good basis and feasible techniques. The start of this project implied the resolution and solemn stand to control the damage of psychological dependence of our government, and reflect the courage and ability for the scientists to solve this problem in neuro-scientific research.