Boston (SmartAboutHealth) - A new study has found what appears to be the key behind cocaine addiction, that being that it forces pleasure genes to stay turned on permanently.

The study was carried out by researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and focused in on cocaine addicts to try and figure out what caused their addiction to keep getting worse.

Researchers used mice for the study, giving one group doses of cocaine and another group doses of saline and cocaine.

What they found was that cocaine has the ability to actually control gene 9A, which turns genes on or off.

What this all means is that by controlling this gene, the pleasure that is felt from cocaine never shuts off, meaning that the addiction will only get worse and worse the more that is used.

The more control the drug has over the gene, the more permanent the pleasure gene will remain turned on.

If medical treatment can take control back from the drug, and take over the gene 9A, then the addiction can lessen a great deal.

Researchers are hopeful that these findings will end up resulting in better treatments for cocaine addicts.

The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and published in the journal Science.