23/08/2023
Depression and Alzheimer's disease physiopathology: Can cannabinoids be a dual-pleiotropic therapy?
Depression and Alzheimer´s disease (AD) are two disorders highly prevalent worldwide.
Despite the wide diversity of pharmacological treatments currently available in clinical practice for depression management, they remain associated to a slow recovery process and to treatment-resistant depression. On the other hand, AD treatment is essentially based in symptomatology relieve.
It is evident that cannabinoids have pleiotropic effects in depression and AD, modulating several physiopathological mechanisms that underly depression and AD rather than targeting only one pathway.
For instance, CBD modulates neuroinflammation, Aβ plaque formation/aggregation, tau hyperphosphorylation and Aβ-induced spatial memory deficits while CBN and CBC modulate neuroinflammation and Aβ plaque formation.
CBG and CBDV mainly actuate in Aβ plaques and ∆9THC in neuroinflammation. Furthermore, the scarce existing clinic studies demonstrate the potential of the cannabinoids in improving anxiety and agitation associated with AD.
Fonseca, C., Ettcheto, M., Bicker, J., Fernandes, M. J., Falcão, A., Camins, A., & Fortuna, A. (2023). Ageing research reviews, 90, 101998. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2023.101998
