Beneficial effects of Inhalant Cannabidiol in the prophylactic treatment of drug resistant epilepsy
Hesamoldin Khodadadi Chamgordani1, Sahar Emami Naeini1, Bidhan Bhandari1, Evila Lopez Salles1, Kathryn Ko1, Krishnan M Dhandapani1, Jack C Yu1, Fernando L Vale-Diaz1, Debra Moore-Hill1, Lei Phillip Wang1, Babak Baban1
1Augusta University
Objective:
To evaluate the duration of effectiveness of inhalant Cannabidiol (CBD) in the treatment of drug resistant epilepsy.
Background:
Epilepsy is the third most common chronic brain disorder, and its treatment remains a challenge. Drug intolerance and resistant epilepsy, necessitate exploring new ways of therapy.
Cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive cannabinoid derived from cannabis plant, has shown beneficial effects in a variety of pathological conditions including epileptic seizures. In fact, a CBD based oral medication has been approved by FDA for the treatment of certain types of seizure disorders. However, current use of cannabidiol oil is limited by the reported side effect of diarrhea (20-30%).
Design/Methods:
We used C57BL/6, 24 weeks old male mice (n=16) as experimental subjects. Mice were divided to 4 groups (n=4/group). 3 groups were prophylactically treated with 8.5 mg of Inhalant CBD (ApelinDx inhaler, Apelindx.com). One group of mice left untreated as sham control. Next, in 10 minutes, 30 minutes and 5 hours after pretreatment with inhalant CBD, epileptic seizures were induced in all 4 groups by injection of 20 mg/kg kainic acid intraperitoneally. Severity of seizure was evaluated using Racine score scale.
Results:
Prophylactic treatment with inhalant CBD ameliorated the severity of seizure symptoms. While 10 minutes pretreatment of mice with inhalant CBD scored between 2 and 4, 30 minutes and 5 hours showed scoring between 1 and 2. The sham control group scored between 4 and 5 (p<0.05).
Conclusions:
Application of Inhalant CBD in experimental model demonstrated decrement in severity of epileptic symptoms and it may decline the complications. An increase in effectiveness of treatment were noticed over time and it seemed to remain effectual even after hours. As a non-invasive therapy, CBD inhaler has high therapeutic capability to be used in an isolated fashion or in combination with current anti-epileptic treatments, warranting further research.