Abstract
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the Substantia Nigra pars compacta, leading to classical PD motor symptoms. Current therapies are purely symptomatic and do not modify disease progression. Cannabidiol (CBD), one of the main phytocannabinoids identified in Cannabis Sativa, which exhibits a large spectrum of therapeutic properties, including anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects, suggesting its potential as disease-modifying agent for PD. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of chronic treatment with CBD (10 mg/kg, i.p.) on PD-associated neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory processes, and motor deficits in the 6-hydroxydopamine model. Moreover, we investigated the potential mechanisms by which CBD exerted its effects in this model. CBD-treated animals showed a reduction of nigrostriatal degeneration accompanied by a damping of the neuroinflammatory response and an improvement of motor performance. In particular, CBD exhibits a preferential action on astrocytes and activates the astrocytic transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1), thus, enhancing the endogenous neuroprotective response of ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF). These results overall support the potential therapeutic utility of CBD in PD, as both neuroprotective and symptomatic agent.
Highlights
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive movement disorder and its prevalence in the population is rapidly rising, with a consequent increasing economic burden on society, in terms of medical care
The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of chronic treatment with CBD on neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory processes, and motor deficits in a classic toxic model of PD based on unilateral intrastriatal injection of 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA)
Current pharmacological treatments of PD are essentially focused on alleviating the characteristic motor symptoms by compensating the loss of dopamine in the nigrostriatal pathway, without affecting the progression of the disease
Summary
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive movement disorder and its prevalence in the population is rapidly rising, with a consequent increasing economic burden on society, in terms of medical care. Phytocannabinoids have shown both neuroprotective capacity and the potential to alleviate motor symptoms [6], which makes them an attractive class of compounds to evaluate as potential innovative therapeutics for PD. Their effects have been extensively studied over the years in various neurodegenerative pathologies, such as Huntington’s disease [7,8], Alzheimer’s disease [9,10], Multiple Sclerosis [11,12] and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis [13], yielding promising results
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