Drug addiction is a chronically relapsing disorder. Susceptibility to relapse can be traced to multiple factors: craving elicited by drug-related cues, anxiety, hypersensitivity to stress, and impaired impulse control. Relapse prevention treatments that concurrently target these vulnerability states may offer significant clinical advantages. Cannabidiol (CBD), the main non-psychoactive component of cannabis sativa, may provide such a profile of actions. CBD reduced ethanol and cocaine seeking in animal models of relapse during 7-days of treatment. Remarkably, drug seeking remained fully attenuated as late as 5 months after treatment termination. CBD also reduced anxiety-like behavior as measured in the elevated plus maze test, both during and after CBD treatment. Finally CBD reversed high impulsivity, measured by a delay discounting task, in rats with an ethanol dependence history. CBD neither interfered with behaviors motivated by non-addictive natural reward, nor altered spontaneous activity. The findings reveal two unique clinically relevant dimensions that characterize the actions of CBD: (1) beneficial actions relevant for multiple vulnerability states associated with drug craving and relapse, and (2) long-lasting effects with only brief treatment. Thus, CBD may exert neuroregulatory actions that restore normal function to brain regulating reward, incentive motivation, impulsivity, stress and anxiety. (Support: NIH-NIAAA/NIDA AA01801, DA07348).
© The Author 2014. Medical Council on Alcohol and Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.