About the Center Director's Message
| Director's Message |
 |
 |
 |
 The consequences of alcoholism and drug abuse are substantial for the affected individual. Jobs, families, health and, ultimately, lives can be lost. Costs to the families of alcohol and drug abusers are also high: children and spouses suffer substantially from the alcoholism or drug abuse of their parents or partners. Costs to the U.S. national economy, including costs of treatment, medical consequences of alcohol and drug abuse, costs of incarceration and lost productivity add up to one of the most costly public health problems we face today.
Alcoholism and substance abuse respond to both behavioral/cognitive therapies and to medically prescribed therapeutics. Behavioral/cognitive therapies, although highly effective for some, fail for many others. Individuals treated with medical therapeutics also show benefit, often in conjunction with behavioral/cognitive therapies. Decades of major national investment in the discovery of molecular components and mechanisms that comprise and control the functions of living organisms have opened an extraordinary period in medical research. Armed with an expanded knowledge and technology base, medical researchers are now making inroads into the most intractable problems of health care and disease prevention. Modern approaches based on molecular and cell biology and genetics have been applied in concert to cancer, cardiovascular disease, and inflammatory diseases, effectively revealing the primary molecular causes of these disorders. We anticipate that the discovery of molecular mechanisms underlying neuronal responses to alcohol and drugs of abuse will similarly lead to a new generation of therapeutic approaches. Alcohol and substance abuse are often seen in individuals with anxiety, stress, schizophrenia, depression, and pain. Indeed, many believe that alcoholism and drug abuse may often be the result of self-medication. Thus, therapies developed to address these related disorders may prove useful in treating alcohol and substance abuse. However, excessive use of alcohol and drugs of abuse also changes brain activity and function, which may require independent treatment. We envision the Gallo Center playing an important role in the development of a growing and diverse palette of novel therapies designed to treat alcoholism and substance abuse in the context of their co-morbid neuropsychiatric disorders. Raymond L. White, Ph.D. |