“The Cannabis sativa plant has been exploited for medicinal, agricultural and spiritual purposes in diverse cultures over thousands of years.
Cannabis has been used recreationally for its psychotropic properties, while effects such as stimulation of appetite, analgesia and anti-emesis have lead to the medicinal application of cannabis.
Indeed, reports of medicinal efficacy of cannabis can been traced back as far as 2700 BC, and even at that time reports also suggested a neuroprotective effect of the cultivar.
…alterations in the endocannabinoid system have been extensively investigated in a range of neurodegenerative disorders.
In this review we examine the evidence implicating the endocannabinoid system in the cause, symptomatology or treatment of neurodegenerative disease. We examine data from human patients and compare and contrast this with evidence from animal models of these diseases. On the basis of this evidence we discuss the likely efficacy of endocannabinoid-based therapies in each disease context.
There has been anecdotal and preliminary scientific evidence of cannabis affording symptomatic relief in diverse neurodegenerative disorders. These include multiple sclerosis, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
This evidence implied that hypofunction or dysregulation of the endocannabinoid system may be responsible for some of the symptomatology of these diseases.”