The impact of phyto- and endo-cannabinoids on central nervous system diseases:A review

Background and aim: Cannabis sativa L. is a medicinal plant with a long history. Phyto-cannabinoids are a class of compounds from C. sativa L. with varieties of structures. Endocannabinoids exist in the human body. This article provides an overview of natural cannabinoids (phyto-cannabinoids and endocanna-binoids) with an emphasis on their pharmacology activities.Experimental procedure: The keywords Cannabis sativa L00, cannabinoids, and central nervous system (CNS) diseases were used for searching and collecting pieces of literature from PubMed, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. The data were extracted and analyzed to explore the effects of cannabinoids on CNS diseases.Result and conclusion: In this paper, schematic diagrams are used to intuitively show the phyto-cannabinoids skeletons' mutual conversion and pharmacological activities, with special emphasis on their relevant pharmacological activities on central nervous system (CNS) diseases. It was found that the endocannabinoid system and microglia play a crucial role in the treatment of CNS diseases. In the past few years, pharmacological studies focused on D9-THC, CBD, and the endocannabinoids system. It is expected to encourage new studies on a more deep exploration of other types of cannabinoids and the mechanism of their pharmacological activities in the future. (c) 2022 Center for Food and Biomolecules, National Taiwan University. Production and hosting by Elsevier Taiwan LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This article provides an overview of natural cannabinoids (phyto-cannabinoids and endocannabinoids) and their pharmacological activities on central nervous system (CNS) diseases. The endocannabinoid system and microglia were found to play a crucial role in the treatment of CNS diseases. Future studies are expected to explore other types of cannabinoids and their mechanisms of pharmacological activities.