Nearly a decade ago , our lab created a genetic mouse model of Dravet Syndrome by mutating the same gene that causes the disorder in humans . And just like humans , mice have spontaneous seizures and exhibit autism-like behaviours . My colleagues and I used these mice to test whether CBD could treat not only seizures , but autism as well .
Autism is a human disorder , so how do you test autism in mice ? Of course , there ’ s no perfect test , but scientists can model certain common aspects of autistic behaviour such as preference to engage in social interaction along with the quality of that interaction . In one test , a mouse chooses between interacting with another mouse or an inanimate object . Generally , mice prefer spending time with the other mouse over the object . But autistic-like mice , such as our Dravet Syndrome mouse , are indifferent , and spend an equal amount of time interacting with the mouse as the object . We gave these mice CBD and the amount of time they spent interacting with the other mouse shot way up ( notably , we only needed to give them 10-20 % of the anti-epileptic dose to achieve this effect ). Looking at the quality of the social interactions , we found that our autistic-like mice tended to dart away from a social interaction and huddle in the corner of their testing box .
This escape can be thought of as social anxiety , perhaps because they ’ re overcome by socially-related sensory stimuli . However , CBD reduced the frequency of these escapes and improved the quality of their social interaction . So in both of our measures of autistic-like social behaviour in mice , CBD improved performance .
To understand how CBD was treating autistic-like behaviour in our mice , we recorded the electrical signals in individual brain cells . We found that CBD increased brain inhibition and restored balance by blocking a brain receptor called GPR55 , which affects how brain cells communicate with one another . GPR55 is one of CBD ’ s many brain targets which makes it such a diverse therapeutic tool for treating everything from pain to autism .
Social behaviour in mice remains an imperfect model of ASD in humans . But as long as the federal government classifies cannabis alongside heroin as a Schedule I drug — a classification reserved for dangerous substances that have no accepted medical use — then it ’ s unlikely that we ' ll see large-scale human trials of CBD and ASD in the United States anytime soon . So for now , we hold our breath as we await the results of Israel ’ s clinical trial , but can sleep easier knowing that we ’ re finding success … at least in mice .
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