Background: Previous clinical data suggest that cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive constituent of the Cannabis sativa plant with anxiolytic, antidepressant, antipsychotic properties, and anti-addictive properties, may hold promise as a therapeutic to...

Cannabidiol (CBD) is a non-intoxicating cannabinoid that has been shown to have anxiolytic properties. There is a vast number of CBD products available to potential users, yet many pre-clinical empirical assessments of CBD’s efficacy are limited by the ...

Drug abuse reached considerable proportions in the last years. Studies have shown that cannabidiol (CBD) has anxiolytic, anti-psychotic, antidepressant and neuroprotective properties. There are also evidence that CBD can reduce drug-seeking behavior. De...

Binge drinking has become a major public health concern due to its high prevalence in modern societies and the scarce and limited pharmacological options available for its clinical management. In this sense, cannabidiol (CBD) has been recently proposed ...

The psychoactive component of cannabis, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is known to produce several aversive effects in human users and experimental animals. THC is a partial agonist of the cannabinoid 1 (CB1) receptor of the endocannabinoid (eCB) system...

Developmental neurotoxicity with maternal exposure during gestation is very well established for a wide variety of toxicants. In contrast, the effects of paternal exposure on offspring neurotoxicity is much less well studied. Preconception exposure to t...

We aimed to establish the pathogenic basis of the association of the tau gene, MAPT, H1 haplotype with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and corticobasal degeneration (CBD). EM analysis of HapMap SNP data for MAPT, showed considerable diversity of the H1 clade with 21 rare (<5%) and 3 common (>10%) haplotypes. Only one of the latter represents H2. We then typed a set of 6 haplotype-tagging SNPs (htSNPs) capturing most of this diversity, in large PSP and CBD case-control cohorts of UK and US origin. We confirmed the strong association with PSP of the H1 haplotype (UK PSP: p=1.14x10-5; US PSP: p=4.02x10-8). In PSP we identified differences in association of the H1H1 genotype between Richardson’s syndrome, RS (OR 13.2; 95%CI 3.0-57.2; p<0.001) and PSP-parkinsonism, PSP-P (OR 4.5; 95%CI 1.3-16.0; p=0.018)1. The H2 haplotype is negatively associated, ie is protective (UK PSP: p=1.1x10-5; US PSP: p=4.02x10-8). The H1-specific htSNPs, rs242557 and rs2471738, are highly associated with PSP and CBD (UK PSP: p=0....

Cannabinoid receptors are abundant in the frontal cortex and hippocampus, areas crucial for attentional control, working memory (WM), and the creation of more lasting memories. Although knowledge of marijuana's neurobiological effects has proliferated, research on marijuana's impact on human cognitive brain function has not progressed as quickly. To examine marijuana’s effects on neurophysiological measures of working and recent memory, a double-blind, counterbalanced study was performed in which 40-channel EEG recordings were obtained from N=10 casual marijuana users before and after smoking active (3.45% THC) or placebo (0.006% THC) marijuana. A spatial N-back task was used to measure WM ability. Intermediate-term memory over a period of 5-10 minutes was measured with a word recognition task. Objective and subjective measures of intoxication increased after smoking marijuana, but alertness and motivation were unchanged. After smoking marijuana reaction time in the WM task increased, as did EEG alpha (8-1...

Whether chronic marijuana (MJ) use adversely affects human brain function remains controversial. Using [15O] water PET, regional cerebral blood flow during selective attention was compared in R-handed MJ users (9 M, 9 F; mean ± SD age, 22.3 ± 2.2 y) and controls (6 M, 7 F; 22.6 ± 1.9 y). The users had been using MJ ≥7 times weekly on average for ≥2 y (mean, 3.9 ± 1.8 y). The controls had never or rarely used MJ. Following MRI, and after ≥26 h of monitored abstention, subjects performed dichotic listening tests using nonsense word stimuli while being imaged with PET. The tests were modifications of previous ones used by our group (O'Leary et al. (1996) Brain Lang 53: 20-39). During separate tests, attention was directed to the L and R ears. A control test, choice reaction time (missing for 2 subjects), was used to control for auditory stimulation and motor responses. Within group subtractions of the control test from the attention tests showed major attention-related activations in auditory cortex, i.e., su...

Depression is highly incident in the diabetic patients. It is known that several antidepressant drugs used to treat depression may alter the blood glucose or even interact with hypoglycemic drugs. Thus, the search for a more effective treatment for the ...