Marijuana-like compound could lead to first-ever medication for PTSD

Alone with thoughts of what should have long been forgotten, I let myself be carried away into the silent screams of delirium.

The greatest personal limitation is to be found not in the points you should do and can’t, but in the items you’ve never considered doing.

It's useful life in an individual affected by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is mostly a debilitating one, as patients are frequently stricken by intense nightmares, flashbacks and emotional instability.

There are plenty of psychotherapeutic treatments and cognitive behavioral therapy opportunities aid individuals with PTSD, but these interventions aren't always offered to patients. And even though medications inclined to be the first line of defense all these individuals, no pharmaceutical treatments have been developed yet to specifically target PTSD.

But now, research could help dramatically alter the treatment for PTSD patients. During the early evaluation of its kind, researchers at Ny University Langone Medical Center have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder utilized brain imaging technology to spotlight a connection connecting the wide range of cannabinoid receptors among the brain and PTSD. Cannabinoid receptors, named CB1 receptors, are activated within the brain each time a person uses cannabis, trigger impaired memory and reduced anxiety.

The researchers’ findings pave the way for the creating of the first every medication designed explicitly as a treatment for trauma – something, they are saying, is desperately needed.

“The first line of treatment (for PTSD patients) is selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which happens to be a session of medication generally utilized with good effects in people with depression,” lead author Dr. Alexander Neumeister, director of this very molecular imaging program in the departments of psychiatry and radiology at NYU School of medication, told FoxNews.com. “These medications do not truly do the project if you have PTSD, so clinicians use anything else that is undoubtedly legally available on the technology market. They often times use different classes of drugs developed for things like depression, schizophrenia, or dean diro, and overall there’s consensus that these fail to work.”

PTSD

Affecting nearly 8 million Americans per annum, PTSD can be considered an depression that really is developed after a person experiences a hazardous or painful life event – for example a sexual assault, a tragic accident, surviving an act of utmost violence as well as experience of fighting in a war. Of this very 1.7 million American people among the military who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, approximately 20 percent have also been diagnosed with PTSD.

Through the past decade, Neumeister and his awesome team have studied the impact PTSD has toward the brain’s physiology and have now found that absorption of severe trauma can considerably alter the condition of the brain functions. This particular knowledge in mind, the researchers made a decision to examine CB1 receptors in the brain due to a common trend observed among PTSD patients: Marijuana use. In an effort to manage their symptoms, many PTSD patients result to using and abusing cannabis, which helps to transient relieve them of their total incapacitating episodes.

In accordance with Neumeister, PTSD patients Post Traumatic Stress Disorder often report that smoking marijuana works better for them compared to any other legal medication, leading the researchers to believe that the manipulation of CB1 receptors among the brain could have a beneficial affect on trauma symptoms.

“About 8 years ago, the first animal study was published showing that everybody has endogenous cannabinoids, or endocannabinoids, in the brain – meaning this substance resides in the brain of each and every person,” Neumeister said, noting that endocannabinoids behave like cannabis, binding to CB1 receptors to assist extinguish traumatic memories. “Animal studies have suggested that increasing cannabinoids inside the brain enables them to to forget painful events and form new memories, in order that they start to learn to digest what they used and aqcuire over it. We thought it could be match with PTSD.”

To test this concept, the scientists performed positron emission tomography (PET) imaging upon the brains of 60 participants who didn't have been split into three groups – individuals that have PTSD, individuals that have a series of trauma, but no PTSD, and those with zero roots or history of trauma or PTSD. Each participant was injected with a harmless radioactive tracer, which has been designed to return the CB1 receptors inside the brain and illuminate them below the PET scan.



The illustrations revealed what the researchers had expected. The personnel with PTSD had higher levels of CB1 receptors in areas of one's brain associated with fear and anxiety when compared to the volunteers without PTSD. People who have PTSD also suffered from lower methods of the neurotransmitter anandamide, an endocannabinoid that binds to CB1. Neumeister explained that lower stages of anandamide prompts the brain to make up by increasing the quantity of CB1 receptors, resulting in an imbalanced endocannibinoid system.

Because CB1 receptors help regulate mood and anxiety, the scientists informed not to creating medications to destroy them inside the brain, as that can lead to depression. Instead, Neumeister said their PTSD medication would trust promoting CB1 equilibrium.

“We want to increase the concentration of these endocannabinoids,” Neumeister said. “So we are currently engaged on the ways to do that, therefore we have developed a substance that really is able to up the concentration of endocannabioniods without attacking the receptors. It aids restore a normal balance of this chemical within the brains of those with PTSD.”

Neumeister claims the compound is amazingly safe and it does not consist of the added medical disorders because of chronic marijuana use.

“Very soon, we are able to start clinical trial in this medication in people,” Neumeister said. “It’s PTSD the earliest medication developed for people Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with PTSD, so I hope that it certainly will open up a fresh series of treatment for people.”

The study, funded via the National Institutes of Health, was published inside the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Give the world the best you've got anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is all between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway.