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Brainstorming : The Science and Politics of Opiate Research / Solomon H. Snyder.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2013]Copyright date: ©1989Edition: Reprint 2014Description: 1 online resource (208 p.) : illustrationsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780674366008
  • 9780674366015
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 612.8/22 20/eng/20230216
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Prologue -- 1. The Politics of Science -- 2. Drug Wars -- 3. Stalking the Opiate Receptor -- 4. Staking the Claim and Taking the Blame -- 5. Agonists and Antagonists -- 6. The Brain's Own Morphine -- 7. The Name Game -- 8. Designer Drugs -- 9. From Opiates to Schizophrenia -- 10. Receptivity -- Notes Acknowledgments Index -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index
Summary: The discovery of how opiates such as morphine and heroin relieve pain and produce euphoria is one of the most dramatic tales of modern science. It begins in 1971 when, at the height of the undeclared war in Vietnam, Richard Nixon officially announced a war on drugs. Heroin addiction--no longer confined to urban ghettos--was causing bad public relations for the White House. The specter of young American soldiers demoralized, drugged, and committing atrocities was not the image President Nixon wished to convey as he argued for further bombings of North Vietnam. In this book Solomon Snyder describes the political maneuverings and scientific sleuthing that led him and Candace Pert, then a graduate student in his lab, to a critical breakthrough in the effort to understand addiction. Their discovery--the so-called opiate receptor--is a structure on the surface of certain nerve cells that attracts opiates. Heroin or morphine molecules fit into opiate receptors much as a key fits into the ignition switch of a car--thus turning on the engine of the cell. Snyder and his students were able to show that nerve cells which possess opiate receptors are found in precisely those parts of the brain that control emotion and pain. Dr. Snyder describes the friendly yet intense competition from other researchers to expand upon this initial discovery. From the work of two Scottish investigators, Hans Kosterlitz and John Hughes, neuroscientists now know not only where opiate receptors are found in the brain but also why they are there: to serve as binding sites for an opiate-like substance produced by the brain itself--the brain's own morphine. This substance, called enkephalin, regulates pain, mood, and a host of other physiological functions. From this very human chronicle of scientific battles in the ongoing war against pain and addiction, we gain an appreciation of the extraordinary intellectual processes of an eminent scientist. But Dr. Snyder's story of scientific brainstorming also affords us rare glimpses into the fruitful, sometimes frustrating, relationships among scientists which enrich and complicate creative work. We are reminded of the delicate political alliances that are forged at every level of organization, from the lab bench to the Oval Office, as the scientific community attempts to fit its needs to those of the larger society.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780674366015

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Prologue -- 1. The Politics of Science -- 2. Drug Wars -- 3. Stalking the Opiate Receptor -- 4. Staking the Claim and Taking the Blame -- 5. Agonists and Antagonists -- 6. The Brain's Own Morphine -- 7. The Name Game -- 8. Designer Drugs -- 9. From Opiates to Schizophrenia -- 10. Receptivity -- Notes Acknowledgments Index -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

The discovery of how opiates such as morphine and heroin relieve pain and produce euphoria is one of the most dramatic tales of modern science. It begins in 1971 when, at the height of the undeclared war in Vietnam, Richard Nixon officially announced a war on drugs. Heroin addiction--no longer confined to urban ghettos--was causing bad public relations for the White House. The specter of young American soldiers demoralized, drugged, and committing atrocities was not the image President Nixon wished to convey as he argued for further bombings of North Vietnam. In this book Solomon Snyder describes the political maneuverings and scientific sleuthing that led him and Candace Pert, then a graduate student in his lab, to a critical breakthrough in the effort to understand addiction. Their discovery--the so-called opiate receptor--is a structure on the surface of certain nerve cells that attracts opiates. Heroin or morphine molecules fit into opiate receptors much as a key fits into the ignition switch of a car--thus turning on the engine of the cell. Snyder and his students were able to show that nerve cells which possess opiate receptors are found in precisely those parts of the brain that control emotion and pain. Dr. Snyder describes the friendly yet intense competition from other researchers to expand upon this initial discovery. From the work of two Scottish investigators, Hans Kosterlitz and John Hughes, neuroscientists now know not only where opiate receptors are found in the brain but also why they are there: to serve as binding sites for an opiate-like substance produced by the brain itself--the brain's own morphine. This substance, called enkephalin, regulates pain, mood, and a host of other physiological functions. From this very human chronicle of scientific battles in the ongoing war against pain and addiction, we gain an appreciation of the extraordinary intellectual processes of an eminent scientist. But Dr. Snyder's story of scientific brainstorming also affords us rare glimpses into the fruitful, sometimes frustrating, relationships among scientists which enrich and complicate creative work. We are reminded of the delicate political alliances that are forged at every level of organization, from the lab bench to the Oval Office, as the scientific community attempts to fit its needs to those of the larger society.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Apr 2024)