Cannabinoids and Parkinson's disease
Published: January 2010
There is a real need to find alternative treatments to classic dopaminergic replacement therapy for the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD). There is also a lack of efficient neuroprotective strategies in PD.
Cannabinoid-based medicines have been proposed as clinically promising therapies for the treatment of PD. Supporting this pharmacological potential, the cannabinoid signaling system – which plays a prominent modulatory function in the basal ganglia – experiences a biphasic pattern of changes during the progression of PD: early and presymptomatic stages of PD are associated with desensitization/downregulation of cannabinoid receptors, whereas intermediate and advanced stages of parkinsonism are associated with upregulatory responses of such receptors and their ligands.
It has been suggested that cannabinoid receptor antagonists could potentially attenuate the bradykinesia typical of PD. In addition, certain cannabinoid agonists have been proposed to serve as neuroprotective molecules in PD.
Despite promising preclinical evidence, the potential of cannabinoid-based medicines in PD has been scarcely studied at the clinical level. Further studies are warranted for these molecules to progress from the present preclinical evidence towards a real clinical application.
