“Cannabinoid-based therapies offer a safer, non-opioid alternative for the management of chronic pain. While most studies focus on the analgesic potential of the main psychoactive component of marijuana, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol, fewer studies have investigated the role of the non-psychoactive component, cannabidiol (CBD). CBD has been purported to have analgesic, anti-inflammatory, anticonvulsant, and anxiolytic effects. In addition to having actions at both cannabinoid receptors (CB1 and CB2 ), CBD has been shown to interact with both the transient receptor potential vanilloid-1 (TRPV1) and serotonergic (5-HT) receptors. Clinically, CBD’s lack of psychoactivity and decreased abuse liability make it an appealing pharmacotherapeutic for the management of chronic pain. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to determine whether CBD sex- or dose-dependently reverses antinociception in an acute model of thermal pain and/or mechanical allodynia in a model of cisplatin-induced chronic neuropathic pain. Furthermore, we observed the degree to which CB1 , CB2 , 5-HT, and TRPV1 receptors may be mediating these anti-allodynic responses. Male and female wild-type mice were assessed for either the anti-allodynic effects of 0, 1, 3, 10, and 30 mg/kg CBD in a cisplatin-induced model of neuropathic pain or the antinociceptive effects of 0, 1, 3, 10, 30, and 100 mg/kg CBD in a model of acute thermal (tail-flick) pain 60 minutes following CBD administration. To determine the relative contributions of each receptor subtype in mediating the anti-allodynic effects of CBD, male and female mice were pretreated with either: vehicle, the CB1 inverse agonist SR141716A (10 mg/kg), the CB2 antagonist SR144528 (10 mg/kg), the TRPV1 antagonist capsazepine (10 mg/kg), or the 5-HT2 antagonist methysergide (4 mg/kg) 30 minutes prior to treatment with CBD. Mice were assessed for the effects of the pretreatment alone and in combination with CBD. CBD at a dose of 3 mg/kg was able to partially reverse cisplatin-induced allodynia in male and female mice, while doses of 10 and 30 mg/kg resulted in nearly complete reversal. Our preliminary findings showed that the anti-allodynic effects of 30 mg/kg CBD were completely blocked following pretreatment with SR141716A and SR144528, and partially blocked by capsazepine in both male and female mice. Interestingly, pretreatment with methysergide partially attenuated the anti-allodynic effects of CBD in females alone. In contrast, CBD (0-100 mg/kg) failed to induce antinociception on the tail-flick assay. CBD did induce mild hypothermia with males showing a greater degree of CBD-mediated hypothermia than female mice. Taken together, these findings suggest that CBD may be a more effective treatment option for the management of chronic pain. This study highlights the therapeutic potential of CBD in a model of neuropathic pain and suggests that these effects may have clinical implications for the use of cannabinoids in chronic pain management.”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35560789/
https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1096/fasebj.2022.36.S1.R5197