Journal
BEHAVIOURAL PHARMACOLOGY
Volume 31, Issue 6, Pages 591-596Publisher
LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS
DOI: 10.1097/FBP.0000000000000565
Keywords
cannabidiol; cannabidiolic acid; fear memory; generalized anxiety; posttraumatic stress disorder; mice
Funding
- Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics
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The major phytocannabinoid cannabidiol (CBD) has anxiolytic properties and lacks tetrahydrocannabinol-like psychoactivity. Cannabidiolic acid (CBDA) is the acidic precursor to CBD, and this compound appears more potent than CBD in animal models of emesis, pain and epilepsy. In this short report, we aimed to examine whether CBDA is more potent than CBD in disrupting expression of conditioned fear and generalised anxiety-related behaviour induced by Pavlovian fear conditioning. Mice underwent fear conditioning and 24 h later were administered CBD and CBDA before testing for fear expression and generalized anxiety-like behaviour. We found that CBD and CBDA had dissociable effects; while CBD but not CBDA disrupted cued fear memory expression, CBDA but not CBD normalized trauma-induced generalized anxiety-related behaviour. Neither phytocannabinoid affected contextual fear expression. Our findings form the basis for future experiments examining whether phytocannabinoids, alone and in combination, are effective in these mouse models of fear and anxiety.
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