“Progressive neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson Disease (PD) lack curative or long-term treatments. At the same time, the increase of the worldwide elderly population and, consequently, the extension in the prevalence of age-related diseases have promoted research interest in neurodegenerative disorders. Caenorhabditis elegans is a free-living nematode widely used as an animal model in studies of human diseases.

Here we evaluated cannabidiol (CBD) as a possible neuroprotective compound in PD using the C. elegans models exposed to reserpine.

Our results demonstrated that CBD reversed the reserpine-induced locomotor alterations and this response was independent of the NPR-19 receptors, an orthologous receptor for central cannabinoid receptor type 1. Morphological alterations of cephalic sensilla (CEP) dopaminergic neurons indicated that CBD also protects neurons from reserpine-induced degeneration. That is, CBD attenuates the reserpine-induced increase of worms with shrunken soma and dendrites loss, increasing the number of worms with intact CEP neurons. Finally, we found that CBD also reduced ROS formation and α-syn protein accumulation in mutant worms.

Our findings collectively provide new evidence that CBD acts as neuroprotector in dopaminergic neurons, reducing neurotoxicity and α-syn accumulation highlighting its potential in the treatment of PD.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36964823/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11064-023-03905-z