Devising New Therapies

The repertoire of the brain's own marijuana has not been fully revealed, but the insights about endocannabinoids have begun helping researchers design therapies to harness the medicinal properties of the plant. Several synthetic THC analogues are already commercially available, such as nabilone and dronabinol. They combat the nausea brought on by chemotherapy; dronabinol also stimulates appetite in AIDS patients. Other cannabinoids relieve pain in myriad illnesses and disorders. In addition, a CB1 antagonist--a compound that blocks the receptor and renders it impotent--has worked in some clinical trials to treat obesity. But though promising, these drugs all have multiple effects because they are not specific to the region that needs to be targeted. Instead they go everywhere, causing such adverse reactions as dizziness, sleepiness, problems of concentration and thinking abnormalities.

   
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
ROGER A. NICOLL and BRADLEY E. ALGER first worked together in the late 1970s, when they both were forming what has become an enduring interest in synaptic transmission. At that time, Nicoll had just moved to the University of California, San Francisco, where he is now professor of pharmacology; Alger, currently professor of physiology and psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, was his first postdoctoral fellow. Nicoll is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and recent winner of the Heinrich Wieland Award.