Two hallmarks of drug addiction are the compulsive nature of substance use and the high propensity for relapse. Relapse is, in fact, so prevalent that attempts to stop using drugs often lead to repeated cycles of detoxification followed by a return to compulsive substance abuse. How can these cycles be broken? A report by Pilla et al. (page 371 of this issue) indicates that, for cocaine at least, conditioned cravings and drug-seeking responses may be reduced using a newly developed partial agonist for the dopamine D_3 receptor.
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