Cannabis Therapeutics and the Future of Neurology
ABSTRACT
A carefully crafted survey of 339 Czech patients using oral cannabis leaves reported significant alleviations of multiple symptoms (Venderová et al., 2004), particularly those using the treatment for three or more months, with improvement in general function (p < 0.001), resting tremor (p < 0.01), bradykinesia (p < 0.01), and rigidity (p < 0.01) with few side effects.
Whereas PD is commonly attributed to cell loss in the substantia nigra, with chronicity, widespread pathology is the norm. In common with Alzheimer disease (AD), tau proteins that regulate microtubule assembly, cytoskeletal integrity and axonal transport in neurons develop neurofibrillary tangles (Lei et al., 2010). Interestingly, nabiximols reduced such tangles in parkin-null human tau-expressing mice with improvement in dopamine metabolism, glial function and oxidative stress, as well as reducing anxiety and self-injury (Casarejos et al., 2013).
