ABSTRACT

Cannabis has been used for medical purposes for centuries. With the discovery of cannabinoid receptors, there has been an explosion of research on both natural and synthetic cannabinoids. This chapter reviews both animal and human research demonstrating the potential role of cannabinoids in motivational processes and their associated disorders (hunger, appetite, pain), psychological disorders (anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcohol dependence) and central nervous system disorders (vomiting and nausea, spasticity, dystonia, brain damage, epilepsy). The most likely applications for cannabinoid agonists are for the treatment of loss of appetite, pain, anxiety, vomiting, nausea and epilepsy. The most likely applications for cannabinoid antagonists may be for anxiety, schizophrenia, spasticity, and dystonia. It is difficult to formulate an hypothesis concerning the potential treatment of depression, bipolar disorder and alcohol dependence since very little work has been done with these disorders at this point in time. In addition, one synthetic cannabinoid may be helpful in the treatment of brain damage. Basic research through clinical trials is needed to understand the potential application for psychological and central nervous system disorders.