My daughter, who is at the honors college at Georgia State University going for a degree in Neuroscience, just sent this to me. They were asked to find a topic, read some materials and write a summary of it for a lab project. My daughter chose to do a project on Cannabidiol and it's potential use as an anti-anxiety medication. Here it is:
Biology 2108 Lab – September 2021
Cannabidiol as a Potential Treatment for Anxiety Disorders: Article Summary
There are a variety of pharmacological treatments for anxiety disorders such as SSRIs, SNRIS, and 50HT receptor agonists. Despite the overwhelming variety of drugs that are available, preclinical studies have concluded that there is a promising outlook for the treatment of generalized anxiety and other related disorders using a phytocannabinoids active in Cannabis Sativa, the most used illicit drug in the United States.
The proposed use of Cannabidiol in this study does not include the use of its counterpart tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) for psychoactive effects. In both human and animal preclinical studies using generalized anxiety models, researchers found that when Cannabidiol was administered in a moderate amount, the ending result was an anxiolytic effect.
More does not necessarily mean better, however, as the results produced a bell-shaped curve revealing that too little or too much Cannabidiol was not as effective as a median, moderate amount. These researchers also found that Cannabidiol was effective in reducing a fear response caused by contextual conditioning, making it a potential treatment for patients who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive compulsive disorders, social anxiety disorder and phobias.
It is Cannabinoid’s efficacy, as well as its excellent safety profile, that truly emphasizes its potential to increase the quality of life for people with anxiety disorders, and further studies are necessary in order to integrate it into medical environments.
Blessing, Ether M et al. “Cannabidio as a Potential Treament for Anxiety Disorders.” Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics vol. 12, 4 (2015): 825-36. Doi: 10.1007/s13311-015-0387-1