A plant to remember. painkillers can reduce the deterioration of the sometimes caused by marijuana memory.
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medical marijuana can relieve pain and nausea, but it can also cause a reduction in attention and memory loss. A new study in mice found that taking medications of over-the-counter pain relievers such as ibuprofen can help reduce these side effects.
"This is what we call a seminal paper," said Giovanni Marsicano, a neuroscientist at the University of Bordeaux in France who was not involved in the work. If the results are confirmed in humans, they "could expand the medical use of marijuana," he said. "Many people in clinical trials are down on treatments because they say:" I can not work. I stoned all the time. "
People have used marijuana for hundreds of years to treat conditions such as chronic pain, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. Of mice studies have shown it can reduce some of the neuronal damage seen in Alzheimer's disease. the main psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is approved by the Food and Drug administration to treat anorexia in AIDS patients and nausea caused by chemotherapy. Although recreational drug users usually smoke marijuana, prescription patients THC taken in capsule form. Many people find difficult side effects to bear, though.
the exact cause of these effects is unclear. in the brain, THC binds to receptors called CB1 and CB2 receptors, which are involved in the development of the nervous system and the perception of pain and appetite. receptors are normally activated by similar compounds, called endocannabinoids, which are produced by the human body. When one of these compounds bind to CB1, it suppresses the activity of an enzyme called cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2). The enzyme has many functions. For example, analgesics such as ibuprofen and aspirin work by blocking COX-2. Researchers have speculated that the suppression of COX-2 could be the cause of the side effects of THC, such as memory problems.
But that is not what the researchers found in the new study. A team led by Chu Chen, a neuroscientist at the Louisiana State University in New Orleans, found that giving THC to mice increases the activity of COX-2. Blocking this activation attenuated memory problems and learning triggered by THC. For example, mice that received a daily dose of THC for a week had trouble remembering the location of a hidden platform in a water tank. If COX-2 was blocked, however, the THC found mice given the platform as fast as mice that were not treated with THC did. This suggests "that unwanted side effects of cannabis could be eliminated or reduced ... by administering an inhibitor of COX-2 ," the authors write today cell .
Raul Gonzalez, a psychologist at Florida International University in Miami, praises the "elegant set of experiments." But he warns that it is not known whether the inhibition of COX-2 blocking the beneficial effects of marijuana. In the study, Chen and colleagues showed that some positive effects of THC, such as that observed in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease are still visible if the mice also receive a COX-2. But such an inhibitor may also interfere with the positive effects of THC on other disorders such as AIDS, Gonzalez wrote in an email. "It is far too early to tell, but the current study will undoubtedly stimulate new exciting research."
A conclusion of the paper is that THC and endocannabinoids can cause the opposite effect when they bind to the CB1 receptors, Marsicano says. This suggests that it may be too simple to think of a CB1 receptor such as a simple switch that always does the same thing if activated, he said. For example, CB1 can come in slightly different forms, and THC can be particularly good at binding to one of these forms.
The authors argue that a painkiller like aspirin can also prevent some of the disadvantages of cannabis abuse. But Gonzalez warned that smoked cannabis contains many more active compounds that THC is the case, and they may also be involved in impair memory and other side effects.
As for people who use marijuana for recreational purposes, take ibuprofen and could kill the buzz they seek, Marsicano says. For example, he said, deficiencies in working memory can make people prone to jump from one topic to another in the course of the conversation, and they can have fun doing it. "So what we call side effects can attract people to marijuana in the first place."
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