“Brain disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), often involve specific early alterations in the metabolism of glucose in the brain.
The idea of alleviating symptoms of dementia by boosting cerebral energy metabolism has been toyed with for decades, yet safe pharmacological agents with well characterized mechanism of action are still lacking.
In this sense, we have investigated here the local cerebral glucoregulatory potential of the endocannabinoid system in rodents.
Cannabinoid CB2 receptors (CB2Rs) are emerging as important therapeutic targets in brain disorders that typically involve neurometabolic alterations.
Together, these results reveal a novel general glucoregulatory role for CB2Rs in the brain, raising therapeutic interest in CB2R agonists as nootropic agents.
In conclusion, the present results provide the first direct pharmacological evidence in vitroand in vivo of a role of CB2R in central glucoregulation.
Additionally, we found that glucoregulation by endogenous CB2R signalling is negatively affected by β-amyloidosis, thought to be the first pathological step in AD.
Therefore, it would be interesting to perform further studies to define how CB2R mediated glucoregulation contributes to the recently discovered therapeutic potential of CB2R agonists in animal models of AD”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028390816300879