New study reveals ketamine could be effective treatment for cocaine-use disorders
As cocaine use continues to climb across the United States, scientists have struggled to develop an effective pharmacological approach to treat the devastating disorder.
But by seamlessly combining artificial intelligence (AI), human intelligence, clinical testing and computer analysis, researchers at Case Western Reserve University have unearthed an existing option that appears to hold promise.
The study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse Clinical Trial Network, was published online in the journal Addiction.
By developing novel AI-based drug discovery algorithms to identify promising candidates from all FDA-approved drugs, reviewing top drug candidates by expert panels of addiction experts such as the University of Cincinnati’s T. John Winhusen, Xu and her colleagues determined ketamine held the greatest potential to yield useful insights.
They evaluated the potential clinical effectiveness of ketamine on improving remission rates among patients with cocaine-use disorders by analyzing tens of millions of electronic health records. They found that cocaine-use disorder patients administered ketamine for pain or depression experienced two to four times higher remission rates.
