Building on their earlier work showing that appetite-regulating peptides reduce alcohol intake via the paraventricular thalamus, the team has turned their attention to cocaine — with striking results. Their new EBioMedicine study finds that tirzepatide, a GIP/GLP-1 receptor agonist approved for diabetes and obesity, dose-dependently reduced cocaine self-administration, motivation, and relapse behaviour in male rodents. It also normalised cocaine-induced dopamine elevations across mesocorticolimbic circuits — consistent with the reward-dampening effects seen in their alcohol research. With no approved pharmacotherapy for cocaine use disorder, the clinical availability of tirzepatide makes these findings particularly timely.
