In a recent study, the potential of cannabinoids—more especially, a combination of CBD and THC—to reduce anxiety in mice going through alcohol withdrawal was investigated and published in Frontiers in Neuroscience. The results imply that the timing of cannabis use during alcohol withdrawal plays a crucial role in influencing how it affects anxiety.
The purpose of the study was to find out if cannabis may lessen withdrawal symptoms from alcohol by easing anxiety, which may lower the likelihood of recurrence.
However, nothing was known about how cannabis affected anxiety brought on by alcohol withdrawal. Considering that many cannabis users blend THC and CBD, the researchers set out to find out how these two cannabinoids, separately and together, impact anxiety during alcohol withdrawal.
"Cannabinoids like THC and CBD have been talked about as potential therapies for treating a variety of mental health conditions, including alcohol use disorder,” according to study author Yuval Silberman, an associate dean for interdisciplinary research at Penn State College of Medicine and an associate professor of neural and behavioral sciences.
"There are several possible explanations for why cannabis may lessen alcohol consumption. We looked at two possibly interrelated causes: a decrease in anxiety-like behavior brought on by alcohol withdrawal and modifications to the effects of alcohol that are already known to occur on modulation.
The researchers employed a sample of 248 adult male and female mice to investigate this. These mice were trained to become alcohol dependent using a well-researched paradigm of alcohol withdrawal: chronic intermittent ethanol vapor exposure. The mice were split up into groups and given either a 4-hour or a 24-hour withdrawal period after their final ethanol vapor exposure.
Subsequently, the mice were given a vehicle solution, 10 mg/kg of CBD, or a 3:1 ratio of CBD to THC by the researchers. The mice were either left unstressed for thirty minutes before to behavioral testing, or they were subjected to a 30-minute stress of restraint. The mice then participated in an open field test, which gauges anxiety-like behavior by tracking how long the mice spend in the middle of the
According to the behavioral results, mice who withdrew for four hours were less worried and spent more time in the open field's center, whereas mice that withdrew for twenty-four hours were less anxious and spent more time there. Both CBD and the CBD combination exacerbated anxiety-like behaviors at the 4-hour withdrawal point. However, the use of the CBD mixture over the 24-hour withdrawal period lengthened stays in the center, indicating a decrease in anxiety.
"Time is important," Silberman stated to PsyPost. We examined two brief alcohol withdrawal periods (four hours and twenty-four hours) and discovered that while CBD and CBD:THC decreased anxiety-like behavior during the 24-hour withdrawal period, they enhanced anxiety during the 4-hour period. Different cannabinoids have different effects when taken separately or in combination. Different effects were observed for CBD and CBD:THC combinations depending on when withdrawal occurred. This has significant ramifications for the development of future treatments.
In the central amygdala, the researchers also discovered alterations in neuroimmune cell activity. The important neuroimmune cells known as microglia and astrocytes decreased at the 4-hour withdrawal point. Remarkably, CBD and the CBD combination seemed to normalize these alterations, pointing to a possible method by which these cannabinoids
The Penn State Center for Cannabis and Natural Product Pharmaceuticals (CCNPP) provided support that made this work—a cooperation between multiple labs—possible. Since its official launch at Penn State in 2023, the relatively new CCNPP has been quite effective in attracting and expanding the university's cannabis and natural product research. Visit the Medical Marijuana Academic Clinical Research Center at Penn State College of Medicine Research (psu.edu) for additional information.
The researchers who carried out the study, "Effects of cannabidiol, with and without ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol, on anxiety-like behavior following alcohol withdrawal in mice," were Dongxiao Sun, Terrence E. Murphy, Amy C. Arnold, Wesley M. Raup-Konsavage, Opeyemi F. Showemimo, Zari E. McCullers, and Mariam Melkumyan.
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