Endocannabinoids : A Promising Impact for Traumatic Brain Injury
Lesley D. Schurman and Aron H. Lichtman
Frontiers in Pharmacology, 2017.
doi: 10.3389/fphar.2017.00069
The endogenous cannabinoid (endocannabinoid) system regulates a diverse array of physiological processes and unsurprisingly possesses considerable potential targets for the potential treatment of numerous disease states, including two receptors (i.e., CB1 and CB2 receptors) and enzymes regulating their endogenous ligands N-arachidonoylethanolamine (anandamide) and 2-arachidonyl glycerol (2-AG). Increases in brain levels of endocannabinoids to pathogenic events suggest this system plays a role in compensatory repair mechanisms. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) pathology remains mostly refractory to currently available drugs, perhaps due to its heterogeneous nature in etiology, clinical presentation, and severity. Here, we review pre-clinical studies assessing the therapeutic potential of cannabinoids and manipulations of the endocannabinoid system to ameliorate TBI pathology. Specifically, manipulations of endocannabinoid degradative enzymes (e.g., fatty acid amide hydrolase, monoacylglycerol lipase, and a/b-hydrolase domain-6), CB1 and CB2 receptors, and their endogenous ligands have shown promise in modulating cellular and molecular hallmarks of TBI pathology such as; cell death, excitotoxicity, neuro-inflammation, cerebrovascular breakdown, and cell structure and remodeling. TBI-induced behavioral deficits, such as learning and memory, neurological motor impairments, post-traumatic convulsions or seizures, and anxiety also respond to manipulations of the endocannabinoid system. As such, the endocannabinoid system possesses potential drugable receptor and enzyme targets for the treatment of diverse TBI pathology. Yet, full characterization of TBI-induced changes in endocannabinoid ligands, enzymes, and receptor populations will be important to understand that role this system plays in TBI pathology. Promising classes of compounds, such as the plantderived phytocannabinoids, synthetic cannabinoids, and endocannabinoids, as well as their non-cannabinoid receptor targets, such as TRPV1 receptors, represent important areas of basic research and potential therapeutic interest to treat TBI.
Keywords : traumatic brain injury, cannabinoid, endocannabinoid, neuroprotection, phytocannabinoid
INTRODUCTION
Traumatic brain injury accounts for approximately 10 million deaths and/or hospitalizations annually in the world, and approximately 1.5 million annual emergency room visits and hospitalizations in the US (Langlois et al., 2006). Young men are consistently over-represented as being at greatest risk for TBI (Langlois et al., 2006). While half of all traumatic deaths in the USA are due to brain injury (Mayer and Badjatia, 2010), the majority of head injuries are considered mild and often never receive medical treatment (Corrigan et al., 2010). Survivors of TBI are at risk for lowered life expectancy, dying at a 32 times more rapid rate than the general population (Baguley et al., 2012). Survivors also face long term physical, cognitive, and psychological disorders that greatly diminish quality of life. Even so-called mild TBI without notable cell death may lead to enduring cognitive deficits (Niogi et al., 2008; Rubovitch et al., 2011). A 2007 study estimated that TBI results in $330,827 of average lifetime costs associated with disability and lost productivity, and greatly outweighs the $65,504 estimated costs for initial medical care and rehabilitation (Faul et al., 2007), demonstrating both the long term financial and human toll of TBI.
The development of management protocols in major trauma centers (Brain Trauma Foundation et al., 2007) has improved mortality and functional outcomes (Stein et al., 2010). Monitoring of intracranial pressure is now standard practice (Bratton et al., 2007), and advanced MRI technologies help define the extent of brain injury in some cases (Shah et al., 2012). Current treatment of major TBI is primarily managed through surgical intervention by decompressive craniotomy (Bullock et al., 2006) which involves the removal of skull segments to reduce intracranial pressure. Delayed decompressive craniotomy is also increasingly used for intractable intracranial hypertension (Sahuquillo and Arikan, 2006). The craniotomy procedure is associated with considerable complications, such as hematoma, subdural hygroma, and hydrocephalus (Stiver, 2009). At present, the pathology associated with TBI remains refractive to currently available pharmacotherapies (Meyer et al., 2010) and as such represents an area of great research interest and in need of new potential targets. Effective TBI drug therapies have yet to be proven, despite promising preclinical data (Lu et al., 2007; Mbye et al., 2009; Sen and Gulati, 2010) plagued by translational problems once reaching clinical trials (Temkin et al., 2007; Tapia-Perez et al., 2008; Mazzeo et al., 2009).
The many biochemical events that occur in the hours and months following TBI have yielded preclinical studies directed toward a single injury mechanism. However, an underlying premise of the present review is an important need to address the multiple targets associated with secondary injury cascades following TBI. A growing body of published scientific research indicates that the endogenous cannabinoid (endocannabinoid; eCB) system possesses several targets uniquely positioned to modulate several key secondary events associated with TBI. Here, we review the preclinical work examining the roles that the different components of the eCB system play in ameliorating pathologies associated with TBI.
THE ENDOCANNABINOID (eCB) SYSTEM
Originally, “Cannabinoid” was the collective name assigned to the set of naturally occurring aromatic hydrocarbon compounds in the Cannabis sativa plant (Mechoulam and Goani, 1967). Cannabinoid now more generally refers to a much more broad set of chemicals of diverse structure whose pharmacological actions or structure closely mimic that of plant-derived cannabinoids. Three predominant categories are currently in use; plant-derived phytocannabinoids (reviewed in Gertsch et al., 2010), synthetically produced cannabinoids used as research (Wiley et al., 2014) or recreational drugs (Mills et al., 2015), and the endogenous cannabinoids, N-arachidonoylethanolamine (anandamide) (Devane et al., 1992) and 2-AG (Mechoulam et al., 1995; Sugiura et al., 1995).
These three broad categories of cannabinoids generally act through cannabinoid receptors, two types of which have so far been identified, CB1 (Devane et al., 1988) and CB2 (Munro et al., 1993). Both CB1 and CB2 receptors are coupled to signaling cascades predominantly through Gi=o-coupled proteins. CB1 receptors mediate most of the psychomimetic effects of cannabis, its chief psychoactive constituent THC, and many other CNS active cannabinoids. These receptors are predominantly expressed on pre-synaptic axon terminals (Alger and Kim, 2011), are activated by endogenous cannabinoids that function as retrograde messengers, which are released from post-synaptic cells, and their activation ultimately dampens presynaptic neurotransmitter release (Mackie, 2006). Acting as a neuromodulatory network, the outcome of cannabinoid receptor signaling depends on cell type and location. CB1 receptors are highly expressed on neurons in the central nervous system (CNS) in areas such as cerebral cortex, hippocampus, caudateputamen (Herkenham et al., 1991). In contrast, CB2 receptors are predominantly expressed on immune cells, microglia in the CNS, and macrophages, monocytes, CD4C and CD8C T cells, and B cells in the periphery (Cabral et al., 2008).
Additionally, CB2 receptors are expressed on neurons, but to a much less extent than CB1 receptors (Atwood and MacKie, 2010). The abundant, yet heterogeneous, distribution of CB1 and CB2 receptors throughout the brain and periphery likely accounts for their ability to impact a wide variety of physiological and psychological processes (e.g., memory, anxiety, and pain perception, reviewed in Di Marzo, 2008) many of which are impacted following TBI.
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