A team of Duke University Medical Center and Australian scientists has found that addictive drugs may have hijacked the same nerve cells and connections in the brain that serve a powerful, ancient instinct: the appetite for salt.
The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences early edition online on July 11.
Wolfgang Liedtke, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine (Neurology), is co-lead author.
Read more: A Classic Instinct -- Salt Appetite -- Is Linked to Drug Addiction.