CBD reverses social-stress effects in mice; implications for Thai youth
A new study reported in Neuropharmacology suggests that cannabidiol, the non-intoxicating compound found in cannabis, may buffer against some lasting psychological and brain changes produced by social stress in adolescence. In a pair of carefully designed experiments, researchers found that giving CBD to male mice before repeated social defeats reduced social avoidance and the heightened readiness to seek drugs like cocaine that often follows stress exposure. The work also showed CBD reversed several stress-induced shifts in brain gene expression tied to the serotonin system, the endocannabinoid system, and the body’s main stress axis, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Importantly, the effects depended on the dose, and the study used animal models, so translating these findings to humans will require cautious, rigorous clinical testing.