A new study from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee could offer potentially the first ever treatment drug for cocaine addiction.

UW-Milwaukee assistant professor of Psychology Devin Mueller said the further research of the drug Propranolol, a common beta blocker, and its effects led to new discoveries of its effect on cocaine addicts.

The UW-Milwaukee research focused primarily on extinction learning, a way to reverse the normal pattern of learning in the brain and create new neurological memories that do not include drug cues, Mueller said.

“When an individual takes a drug in a specific environment the brain consequently associates that place with the drug. The brain is trained to expect this and an individual will still experience craving in this environment even without taking the drug,” Mueller said.

Propranolol was chosen for the study because it has been used in the past to help relieve recovering cocaine addicts from withdrawal symptoms, according to a statement from UW-Milwaukee.

Mueller found that Propranolol reversed this learning effect and thus erased all drug cues within the brain. The drug helps the brain create new memories without cocaine addiction.

The Federal Drug Administration approved Propranolol, which is commonly prescribed to treat hypertension, Mueller said. He also added that the researchers at UW-Milwaukee didn’t develop this new drug, but simply began studying its different potential effects on the brain.

“The research being conducted so far has only been on animal patients,” Mueller said. “We are hoping to collaborate with another lab in Chicago and begin a human clinical trial with the drug in the near future.”

Mueller said there is promising data that this drug will effectively work to cure cocaine addiction in humans. The only treatment for cocaine addicts prior to the use of Propraolol was rehabilitation and drugs to treat cravings and other withdrawal effects.

According to Mueller there are only a few known negative side effects of the drug. Propranolol relaxes patients and significantly reduces blood pressure. An addict that continues to use cocaine would be at risk for overdose as the drug masks the dangerous effects of cocaine usage.

“Eighty percent of cocaine addicts that go through rehabilitation programs relapse,” Mueller said.

According to the statement from UW-Milwaukee, Mueller and other researchers at Milwaukee’s psychology department presented their work last Thursday at the annual meeting for the Society of Neuroscience in San Diego.