Anxiety, the chicken or the egg of addiction: targeting G9a for the treatment of comorbid anxiety and cocaine addiction

Treating cocaine addiction is a major challenge and currently no FDA approved pharmacotherapies exist. One complicating factor is a high rate of comorbidity between cocaine and neuropsychiatric conditions such as anxiety. The relationship between anxiety symptoms and cocaine addiction is complicated; anxiety can be both a predisposing factor and a consequence of cocaine use as anxiety symptoms often emerge during drug use and withdrawal. Identifying and understanding the shared biological mechanisms that lead to comorbid anxiety and cocaine addiction, irrespective of which comes first, is critical for the identification of new treatments.