Cannabinoids in Parkinson's Disease

Impossible to decipher what was trying to be said with so many caveats. It should be so simple; These patients with this objective starting point using this amount delivered this way objectively improved in these measures. See, not so hard. I can't tell from here if I should be driving to Colorado, buy some pot and head to Minnesota to get some to my Dad. Of course no one is writing a similar article for stroke.
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/can.2017.0002

To cite this article:
Stampanoni Bassi Mario, Sancesario Andrea, Morace Roberta, Centonze Diego, and Iezzi Ennio. Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research. February 2017, 2(1): 21-29. doi:10.1089/can.2017.0002.

Published in Volume: 2 Issue 1: February 1, 2017

• Full Text HTML
• Full Text PDF (781.2 KB)
• Full Text PDF with Links (588.3 KB)

Author information

Mario Stampanoni Bassi,^1,2 Andrea Sancesario,¹ Roberta Morace,¹ Diego Centonze,^1,2,* and Ennio Iezzi¹

¹Neurology and Neurorehabilitation Units, IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Mediterraneo (INM) Neuromed, Pozzilli, Italy.

²Department of Systems Medicine, Tor Vergata University, Rome, Italy.

^*Address correspondence to: Diego Centonze, MD, Department of Systems Medicine, Tor Vergata University, Via Montpellier 1, Rome 00133, Italy, E-mail: centonze@uniroma2.it

ABSTRACT

The endocannabinoid system plays a regulatory role in a number of physiological processes and has been found altered in different pathological conditions, including movement disorders. The interactions between cannabinoids and dopamine in the basal ganglia are remarkably complex and involve both the modulation of other neurotransmitters (γ-aminobutyric acid, glutamate, opioids, peptides) and the activation of different receptors subtypes (cannabinoid receptor type 1 and 2). In the last years, experimental studies contributed to enrich this scenario reporting interactions between cannabinoids and other receptor systems (transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 cation channel, adenosine receptors, 5-hydroxytryptamine receptors). The improved knowledge, adding new interpretation on the biochemical interaction between cannabinoids and other signaling pathways, may contribute to develop new pharmacological strategies. A number of preclinical studies in different experimental Parkinson's disease (PD) models demonstrated that modulating the cannabinoid system may be useful to treat some motor symptoms. Despite new cannabinoid-based medicines have been proposed for motor and nonmotor symptoms of PD, so far, results from clinical studies are controversial and inconclusive. Further clinical studies involving larger samples of patients, appropriate molecular targets, and specific clinical outcome measures are needed to clarify the effectiveness of cannabinoid-based therapies.