Study: CBD normalizes brain activity in psychotics

A study from King's College London (KLC), published in the newspaper JAMA Psychiatry, shows that CBD may be effective in treating psychotic disorders. In the Netherlands, a review of existing research on CBD had already suggested that CBD had antipsychotic effects. This latest research from the KLC shows that CBD is a promising treatment for psychosis, particularly schizophrenia.

Research is making progress

Psychotic disorders are the third leading cause of disability among adults. They are more common than people realize and significantly impair patients’ social lives and personal development. For a long time, research has struggled to identify their causes and prevent their onset. Studies suggest that certain markers of neuroplasticity and the monitoring of brain functions may provide a better understanding of how these diseases work. Today, research has led to the establishment of categories such as that of clinically high-risk (CHR) individuals, on which the KLC study focuses its attention.

As early as 2017, the KLC had published the results of clinical trials examining the impact of CBD on patients with psychosis. They found that administering CBD led to a reduction in psychotic symptoms and an improvement in the subjects’ cognitive performance, without causing any side effects. Thus, it was already clear that CBD had a potential therapeutic effect on psychosis; however, the researchers did not know why or how. They therefore launched a follow-up study to use MRI scans to observe the effects of CBD on the brain, focusing in particular on the areas involved in psychotic disorders.

The study in question

The study compared 33 CHR subjects with 19 healthy subjects and was conducted over a 3-year period (from 2013 to 2016). Sixteen of the subjects received an oral dose of 600 mg of CBD, and the other 17 received a placebo. The healthy subjects did not receive any treatment. The researchers then used MRI to observe the effects of the medication on three parts of the brain strongly implicated in psychosis: the striatum, the medial temporal cortex, and the midbrain.

The results showed that the level of abnormal activity in these areas among subjects who received CBD fell between that of healthy patients and that of high-risk patients who received a placebo. The CBD dose does not completely eliminate abnormal brain activity but significantly reduces it. The researchers therefore concluded that CBD is capable of normalizing brain dysfunction associated with psychotic disorders and could thus serve as a treatment.

While it was previously thought that cannabis worsened the symptoms of schizophrenia, a recent study showed that there was no significant causal link proving these facts. However, it did show that a predisposition to schizophrenia appears to be a key factor in daily cannabis use, with researchers suggesting that such use could be a form of self-medication.