FACULTI Professor David Baker Cannabinoids control spasticity and tremor in multiple sclerosis

Faculti Professor David Baker Cannabinoids control spasticity and tremor in MS. Faculti "Context" People were not getting really good treatments with their current drugs. And so they were was a kind of selfexperimenting the cannabis. And they were perceiving benefit but really there wasn't any biology behind that. So at the time we were asked to try and investigate that with some animal models that we had. And so what we did is, because we were doing long-term experiments. We saw animals with symptoms that are kind of relevant for human multiple sclerosis, particularly spasticity. And so we could ask the question.

Does cannabis really have any effect in controlling the symptoms of multiple sclerosis? "Methodology" So what we did is we had annimals, we got some cannabis like drugs. Because at the time it was found that there was a receptor. So we knew that cannabis worked because it was binding to a receptor. And so we stimulated the receptor in action, within a few minutes we saw the alleviation of the symptoms, which was like a relaxation of the limbs. So the next important thing that we did is we blocked the cannabis system. And really what happened then was actually everything got worse. Which kinda told us that the cannabis system was controlling the symptoms. And therefore by giving, you know..

Cannabis, all we were doing was actually acting on a actual regulatory system. Now at the time we didn't really understand the biology. But it suggested to us that we knew that spasticity was a problem of too much excitation of the nerves.

"Main Findings" And actually within a few years what was found, is that for a nerve impulse to obviously cross... The synapse. It has to have signals and the signal is propagated. And as a consequence of that propagation the natural cannabis molecule is released.

Called anandamide or 2-arachidonyl glycerol. Which acts as a retrograde signal to go back to the presynaptic cannabinoid receptor and actually shut down excessive excitation. So once you start to think that the cannabis system really controls excessive neuro signaling. That it kind of makes sense that cannabis could have an effect in controlling symptoms. So indeed that's kind of what we showed in the animals. And at that time the government had given a license to a company to actually start producing medical-grade cannabis. And they initiated trials and initially they failed.

Because the trial design kind of wasn't the most appropriate. And in fact it took them 10 years to actually show that cannabis actually worked. Now the problem of course is what we realize from the biology, is that the molecule whitin cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol and the CB1 receptor. Are the things that actually cause the therapeutic effect and also the side effect. It's just because say, the motor control is controlled in the cerebellum and the psycho activity may be controlled in the cortex. And so cannabis has no mechanism to go to one area or the other. So you got quite a narrow therapeutic window. So what we found is that indeed cannabis does control symptoms and it's actually become a therapeutic drug.

"Conclusions" I think that this work tells us that we can control symptoms. But it also tells us that we need to learn and learn from biology. Because actually we can get the therapy without the high and we're kind of doing that now. So this is sort of a drug for tomorrow. Faculti.