Review
Version 1
This version is not peer-reviewed
The CB2 Receptor as a Novel Therapeutic Target for Epilepsy Treatment
Version 1
: Received: 5 July 2021 / Approved: 6 July 2021 / Online: 6 July 2021 (17:09:20 CEST)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Ji, X.; Zeng, Y.; Wu, J. The CB2 Receptor as a Novel Therapeutic Target for Epilepsy Treatment. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2021, 22, 8961. Ji, X.; Zeng, Y.; Wu, J. The CB2 Receptor as a Novel Therapeutic Target for Epilepsy Treatment. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2021, 22, 8961.
Abstract
Epilepsy is characterized by repeated spontaneous reactions caused by hyper-excitability and neurons firing in high synchronization in the central nervous system. It seriously affects the quality of life of epileptic patients and nearly 30% of individuals are refractory to treatment of antiepileptic drugs. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new medicines to manage and control the refractory epilepsy. Cannabinoid ligands including selective cannabinoid receptor subtype (CB1 or CB2 receptor) ligands and non-selective cannabinoid (synthetic and endogenous) ligands may serve as the novel candidates for this need. Cannabinoid systems appear to regulating seizure activity in the brain through the activation of CB1 and CB2 cannabinoid receptors (CB1R and CB2R). An abundant series of cannabinoid analogues have been tested in various animal models, including a rat pilocarpine model of acquired epilepsy, in vitro hippocampal neuronal culture models of acquired epilepsy and status epilepticus, a pentylenetetrazole model of myoclonic seizures in mice and a penicillin-induced model of epileptiform activity in the rats. The accumulating lines of evidence show that cannabinoid ligands exhibit significant benefits to control seizure activity in different epileptic models. For this reason, we summarize the relationship between brain CB2 receptors and seizures, and emphasize the potential mechanisms of their therapeutic effects involving affecting neurons, astrocytes, and microglia cells. The unique features of CB2Rs, such as lower expression levels under physiological conditions and high inducibility under epileptic conditions, make it an important target for future research on drug-resistant epilepsy.
Keywords
cannabinoid receptor 2; epilepsy; cAMP, M-current; anti-inflammatory
Subject
Medicine and Pharmacology, Immunology and Allergy
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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