Researchers on Thursday, after an extensive study, revealed that prolonged cocaine use and exposure can lead to permanent changes in the way genes works and are switched "on and off" in the brain, and finding is being considered as an important cue that could lead to more effective treatments for various kinds of addictions.

Led by Ian Mazer from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, researchers conducted a study on mice and discovered that chronic addiction to cocaine managed to keep a specific enzyme from doing its job of stopping other genes in the pleasure circuits of the brain, which made the mice crave the drug to an even greater extent.

According to Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the study has managed to explain how use of cocaine can change the brain and its workings. "This finding is opening up our understanding about how repeated drug use modifies in long-lasting ways the function of neurons", she said.

Earlier studies in the field have also managed to reveal how animals exposed to cocaine for extended durations undergo drastic changes in the way some genes work.

Details of the study have been published in the journal Science.