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THC found to remove plaque-forming Alzheimer’s proteins, reduce inflammation, and protect nerve cells

Salk Institute scientists have found preliminary evidence that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other compounds found in marijuana can promote the cellular removal of amyloid beta, a toxic protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

While these exploratory studies were conducted in neurons grown in the laboratory, they may offer insight into the role of inflammation in Alzheimer’s disease and could provide clues to developing novel therapeutics for the disorder.

“Although other studies have offered evidence that cannabinoids might be neuroprotective against the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, we believe our study is the first to demonstrate that cannabinoids affect both inflammation and amyloid beta accumulation in nerve cells,” says Salk Professor David Schubert, the senior author of the paper.

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Ref: Amyloid proteotoxicity initiates an inflammatory response blocked by cannabinoids. NPJ Aging and Mechanisms of Disease (23 June 2016) | DOI: 10.1038/npjamd.2016.12 | PDF (Open Access)

ABSTRACT

The beta amyloid (Aβ) and other aggregating proteins in the brain increase with age and are frequently found within neurons. The mechanistic relationship between intracellular amyloid, aging and neurodegeneration is not, however, well understood. We use a proteotoxicity model based upon the inducible expression of Aβ in a human central nervous system nerve cell line to characterize a distinct form of nerve cell death caused by intracellular Aβ. It is shown that intracellular Aβ initiates a toxic inflammatory response leading to the cell’s demise. Aβ induces the expression of multiple proinflammatory genes and an increase in both arachidonic acid and eicosanoids, including prostaglandins that are neuroprotective and leukotrienes that potentiate death. Cannabinoids such as tetrahydrocannabinol stimulate the removal of intraneuronal Aβ, block the inflammatory response, and are protective. Altogether these data show that there is a complex and likely autocatalytic inflammatory response within nerve cells caused by the accumulation of intracellular Aβ, and that this early form of proteotoxicity can be blocked by the activation of cannabinoid receptors.

cinematic parallels 

How Senegal stretched its health care system to stop Covid-19

Senegal’s quarantine policy sought to slow transmission, and local health care workers battled the pandemic from the ground up.

“We have what we call a ‘chain of solidarity’: The nation joined hands together,” Moussa Seydi, chief of infectious disease service at Dakar’s University of Fann Hospital Center, said. “Religious leaders came to join the political decision-makers, and also, the community involved themselves in giving this response to Covid-19.”

“People were saying: ‘You all will die with this Covid. Africa will disappear with this Covid,’” Seydi said. “Africans got so scared that they didn’t have any other choice but to prepare themselves. More than usual! And this preparation contributed to the fight against this disease.”