The Effects of CBD on the Brain

CBD interacts with many different GPCRs, including CB1, CB2, 5-HT1A and adenosine A2a receptors as well as ion channels and transcription factors. This means that CBD has multiple mechanisms of action, which may explain its antidepressant-like effects in animal studies.

Another interesting mechanism of CBD is that it protects neurons from CBD neurotoxicity in a cell culture model. This is accomplished by interacting with astrocytes, which are supportive cells that protect neurons from stress and damage.

Neurotransmitters

CBD interacts with the endocannabinoid system (ECS), a biological system that acts as a bridge between brain and body, affecting your mood, appetite, sleep patterns, immune response, pain tolerance, and more. When you consume CBD, it affects the levels of neurotransmitters that control these functions and also alters the receptor proteins that attach to these neurotransmitters. CBD can have an antidepressant effect and can alleviate stress by stimulating the production of hormones that regulate your emotions. It can also reduce anxiety and help with insomnia. The ECS is responsible for regulating your appetite, metabolism, and the levels of neurotransmitters in the bloodstream. It also influences your emotional responses and can have a positive impact on your memory.

CBD has been shown to have an anxiolytic effect in fMRI studies of social anxiety disorder patients. It modulated rCBF in limbic and paralimbic cortical regions, including the orbitofrontal cortex, cingulate cortex, and the medial temporal lobe. It also reduced activity in the hippocampus, which is associated with fear memory. In addition, CBD was found to inhibit FAAH, resulting in increased AEA cerebrospinal fluid concentrations. The increased AEA may explain the anxiolytic effects of CBD.

It has been shown that CBD has anxiolytic properties in animal models, as well as a reduced risk of seizures in epileptic patients. It acts as a natural NMDA receptor antagonist, and can increase endogenous adenosine levels in the brain, which is thought to play an important role in seizure suppression. Additionally, it is thought to enhance adenosine levels by inhibiting FAAH and preventing the degradation of adenosine triphosphate by vesicular monoamine transporters.

In a study, awake fMRI was used to determine the impact of CBD on fronto-striatal connectivity during cognitive paradigms. The results showed that CBD enhanced a network of brain areas involved in reward and salience processing, which is consistent with its anxiolytic properties. Acute CBD administration also normalised disbalanced fronto-striatal activity in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis and with established psychosis, and reduced activation in the parahippocampus during auditory processing of fearful faces. This is a promising finding for future research in schizophrenia and related conditions.

Mood

CBD has been shown to affect mood in several studies, including animal and human behavioral tests and neuroimaging methods. These studies show that CBD can reduce anxiety and mood disorders in humans and animals. It also has the potential to be a useful treatment for psychiatric disorders, such as depression and schizophrenia. However, more research is needed to determine how and at what dosages CBD should be used to treat these conditions.

fMRI studies have demonstrated that CBD can decrease activity in brain regions involved in stress and anxiety. These include the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex. CBD is thought to interact with 5-HT1A receptors, which are responsible for the regulation of anxiety and stress responses. It is a partial agonist of this receptor, and it acts to increase the binding of GTPgS to its cognate site. This causes the activation of GTP-S-transferases, which leads to an increase in cytosolic Ca2+ concentrations. CBD has also been shown to alter gene expression through epigenetic mechanisms, such as DNA methylation and histone modifications. This may explain its anxiolytic effects in psychiatric disorders.

In a study of patients with social anxiety disorder, CBD decreased symptom severity and the likelihood of a panic attack. It also improved performance on a fear-inducing test. CBD also reduced the frequency of apprehension and the number of anxious thoughts. It was also effective in reducing anxiety induced by a public speaking test.

CBD is thought to affect mood by regulating neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These neurotransmitters are responsible for a variety of effects, such as mood, appetite, sleep, and pain. Moreover, CBD has been found to modulate the expression of genes that regulate these neurotransmitters, such as the MAPK signaling pathway. These changes in gene expression are responsible for the anxiolytic and antidepressant effects of CBD.

Several fMRI studies have demonstrated the acute effects of CBD on brain function in healthy volunteers. These studies have found that CBD significantly altered functional connectivity in networks relevant to psychiatric disorders during resting state and during several cognitive paradigms. For example, CBD increased fronto-striatal connectivity during resting state and salience processing, while it decreased connectivity in the cingulate cortex during salience processing and response inhibition. Furthermore, CBD attenuated the increase in anxiety induced by pre-imaging procedures.

Memory

The effects of CBD on memory have been studied in animal models and in human subjects using neuroimaging techniques. One study showed that CBD decreases the risk of oxidative stress in the brain and therefore preserves memory function (da Silva et al., 2018). In addition, CBD reduces anxiety in humans and animals, which can also affect memory. CBD may be able to prevent the memory deficits that occur in Alzheimer’s disease. Another study found that CBD enhances cognitive performance by modulating hippocampal activity (Bloomfield et al., 2020).

CBD increases cerebral blood flow in brain regions that are involved in memory processing and improves memory performance. It also alters the activity of these brain regions, preventing oxidative stress and increasing neuronal activity. In addition, CBD increases hippocampus-dependent learning and recall (Zivkovic et al., 2023).

Several studies have shown that CBD modulates brain networks involved in mood and memory. In a study of psychiatric patients, CBD reduced anxiety levels and increased working memory performance compared to controls. It also inhibited fear memory expression, enhanced memory extinction, and disrupted reconsolidation of memories in patients with PTSD (Lee et al., 2017). In a study of people with TRE, CBD improved attention control examined with an attention/flanker task and by modulating activations in the right superior frontal gyrus and the insula (Bhattacharyya et al., 2019).

Another study of people with TRE found that oral CBD increased NonREM sleep at the end of the night and changed sleep microstructure – leading to less long ripples. This led to worse cumulative memory but intact simple memory tested the following day. In addition, CBD enhanced fronto-striatal connectivity relative to placebo and healthy controls during memory encoding, and inhibited limbic activity in response to fearful faces (O’Neill et al., 2020).

Acute CBD administration significantly affected the neural responses in brain areas associated with emotion and cognition during a resting state, as well as when performing a task-specific paradigm. For example, it decreased fronto-limbic connectivity in the anterior cingulate cortex and amygdala during emotional processing, and enhanced activity in these areas in response to salience processing. These effects are mediated by CBD’s direct inhibition of voltage-gated sodium channels and its indirect activation of the NMDA receptor.

Stress

CBD has anxiolytic properties and reduces the anxiety triggered by certain events. It does this by reducing the flow of blood to the area of the brain responsible for your response to anxiety. The reduced flow of blood causes a reduction in the production of cortisol, which is a stress hormone that can affect your mood and cause you to feel anxious. It also helps to increase your serotonin levels, which is another natural mood enhancer and relaxant. The combination of these effects can make it much easier to get to sleep, which in turn will help you feel more calm and relaxed.

The anxiolytic effects of CBD may be related to its ability to attenuate the encoding and retrieval of fearful faces in the amygdala-hippocampal complex, hypothalamus and posterior cingulate cortex. In addition, CBD was found to decrease activity in the right posterior lobe of the cerebellum during emotional processing. Similarly, fMRI studies reported that CBD attenuated activation of the left medial temporal region (amygdala and anterior parahippocampal gyrus), left superior frontal gyrus, parietal operculum and the left frontal insula.

These changes were associated with decreased activation of the cingulate, orbitofrontal, insula, and precentral cortices during resting state and emotional processing tasks in individuals with schizophrenia. CBD also increased functional connectivity in the fronto-striatal circuitry during both resting state and salience processing. These changes were associated with decreased subjective anxiety ratings during the task, which was correlated with increases in ECD uptake.

CBD can inhibit the release of dopamine in the striatum, which is an important component of reward pathways. This is due to the inhibition of the reuptake of dopamine by the D2 receptors (Trifilieff et al., 2020). Furthermore, in animal studies, CBD was found to reduce amphetamine and cocaine induced increases in neuronal dopamine signaling. As a result, these studies suggest that CBD may be useful in the treatment of drug use disorders, such as addiction and substance abuse. It may also be helpful in the prevention of relapse in patients with psychiatric disorders, such as PTSD. This is primarily because it reduces the rewarding effect of drugs, such as stimulants and opioids, while reducing the withdrawal symptoms.