“We have recently shown that chronic treatment with cannabidiol (CBD) was able to recover memory deficits induced by brain iron loading in a dose-dependent manner in rats.
Brain iron accumulation is implicated in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and has been related to cognitive deficits in animals and human subjects.
…we have analyzed the expression level of brain proteins involved with mitochondrial fusion and fission mechanisms (DNM1L and OPA1), the main integral transmembrane protein of synaptic vesicles (synaptophysin), and caspase 3, an apoptosis-related protein, to gain a better understanding of the potential of CBD in restoring the damage caused by iron loading in rats.
We found that CBD rescued iron-induced effects…
Our results suggest that iron affects mitochondrial dynamics, possibly trigging synaptic loss and apoptotic cell death and indicate that CBD should be considered as a potential molecule with memory-rescuing and neuroprotective properties to be used in the treatment of cognitive deficits observed in neurodegenerative disorders.”