Summary, full article published in Stanford Medicine News Center
A marijuana-like chemical in the brain, mirroring its plant-based counterpart, packs both ups and downs.
Epileptic seizures trigger the rapid synthesis and release of a substance mimicked by marijuana’s most psychoactive component, Stanford University School of Medicine investigators have learned. This substance is called 2-arachidonoylglycerol, or 2-AG, and has the beneficial effect of damping down seizure intensity.
But there’s a dark side. The similarly rapid breakdown of 2-AG after its release, the researchers found, trips off a cascade of biochemical reactions culminating in blood-vessel constriction in the brain and, in turn, the disorientation and amnesia that typically follow an epileptic seizure.
The Stanford scientists’ findings, reached in collaboration with colleagues at other institutions in the United States, Canada, and China, are described in a study to be published Aug. 4 in Neuron. Ivan Soltesz, PhD, professor of neurosurgery, shares senior authorship with G. Campbell Teskey, PhD, professor of cell biology and anatomy at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. The study’s lead author is Jordan Farrell, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in Soltesz’s group.
The researchers’ discoveries could guide the development of drugs that both curb seizures’ strength and reduce their aftereffects.