Deletion of Addiction Gene Keeps Mice off Cocaine

European researchers have discovered how a gene that has previously been implicated in cancer plays a key role in certain regions of the brain in the control of cocaine addiction in mice. Studies headed by a team at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Belgium showed that animals lacking the melanoma antigen gene (Mage) known as Maged1 were unresponsive to cocaine, and didn’t develop the characteristic behaviors and signs of addiction, such as locomotor sensitization, drug see