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The relationship of BDNF to dopamine isn't a new revelation, and the researchers have already successfully used the protein to turn drug-dependent behaviors "on" and "off" in rats. The experiment behind BYU's new contribution again took rats and switched off their receptors for BDNF, and then got them hooked on opiates.What they found is that, over time, the rats developed new receptors for the protein via the processes of neural plasticity, essentially recreating the structures "necessary for both the establishment of an opiate-dependent state and aversive withdrawal motivation," the researchers wrote in the Journal of Neuroscience. The upshot is that the brain is remodels itself in response to substance abuse. This is addiction.As such, BDNF and the processes that create it are powerful targets for an addiction "cure." This is what the research team's lead investigator, Scott Steffensen, sees in the discovery: "Addiction is a brain disease that could be treated like any other disease,” he said in a BYU statement. “I wouldn’t be as motivated to do this research, or as passionate about the work, if I didn’t think a cure was possible.”The catch, however, is that addiction isn't limited to the mechanisms and chemicals in the brain that we call "addiction." We know well enough that it's closely related to mental illness, as well as all kinds of socioeconomic factors. Addiction is, in some ways, a symptom in itself. Roughly half of diagnosed schizophrenics drink or use drugs to excess, while nearly 60 percent of patients with bipolar disorder have some substance abuse in their history.In this light, we might look at an addiction "cure" as actually just another method of treating the symptoms. No doubt the existence of such a method would be an overall good, but a reasonable concern is some future in which substance abuse is treated in an even less holistic manner that it is now.If you've spent even a small amount of time in the trenches of substance abuse treatment, you know what goes into it. It's not a matter of treating just the drug or even the drug-specific behaviors; addiction is like a hydra, with different snarling heads burrowing into every aspect of a patient's existence. In essence, drug treatment becomes a matter of treating someone's life: work, family, living conditions, diet, and so on.An on/off switch doesn't change the nature of addiction from a self-reinforcing, all-encompassing monster to a wound in need of stitches. The ability to turn off withdrawal symptoms would be a marvelous addition to the intervention of drug treatment. But a cure? It's not so easy.“I wouldn’t be as motivated to do this research, or as passionate about the work, if I didn’t think a cure was possible.”