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...sleeping extra hours the next day to catch up, the researchers put nine volunteers on a specialized sleep-wake schedule consisting of 33 hours of wakefulness and 10 hours of sleep. Using a series of tests, the researchers measured the subjects' reflexes, motor skills, memory, decision making, and other brain functions...
...have one thing in common: illegal drug use, says Dr. Nancy Zhu, who treated the patients during her hematology fellowship at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton. "We were theorizing that maybe it was something in the cocaine," she says. (See how cocaine scrambles genes in the brain...
...understanding of how levamisole affects the body, however, may better explain its explosive popularity. A 1998 paper found that levamisole relieved symptoms of heroin withdrawal in rats and also raised levels of various brain chemicals related to drug highs. "It may increase dopamine and by so doing may enhance cocaine effects," speculates Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. (See 2009's best pictures...
Research conducted by Eldo Kuzhikandathil, assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, suggests that levamisole may indirectly increase the number of D1 dopamine receptors in the brain by affecting gene expression there. "Cocaine increases D1 expression," he says, "and this would probably accentuate that," which could enhance both highs and craving...
Levamisole also affects acetylcholine receptors throughout the body, which can boost heart rate - and studies of cocaine users show that they associate jumps in heart rate with getting high, spurring good feelings even before the drug hits the brain. A cut that accelerates heart rate might make them think they're getting the real thing. In the brain, levamisole may affect the same acetylcholine receptors activated by nicotine, another addictive drug that raises dopamine levels - which may be another clue to levamisole's lure. (See pictures of the antinarcotics police in Guinea-Bissau and Liberia...