Many of us have heard of some transmitter system inside our body, equivalent to the sympathetic nervous system, that provides us our fight-or-flight response. Few people have heard of the recently discovered endocannabinoid system (ECS), which is surprising once you consider that the ECS is critical to just about every aspect of our moment-to-moment functioning. ECS Regulates and controls many of our vital bodily functions. equivalent to learning and memory, emotional processing, sleep, temperature control, pain control, inflammation and immune response, and eating. ECS is currently at the middle of renewed international research and drug development.
What is ECS?
The ECS consists of an intensive network of chemical signals and cellular receptors that fill our brains and bodies. There are more “cannabinoid” receptors within the brain – CB1 receptors – than many other forms of receptors on the brain. They act like traffic cops to control the degrees and activity of most other neurotransmitters. This is how they regulate things: through fast feedback, turning up or down the activity of whatever system must be adjusted, whether it's hunger, temperature, or alertness.
To activate these receptors, our bodies produce molecules called endocannabinoids, that are structurally much like molecules present in the cannabis plant. The first endocannabinoid discovered was named anandamide after the Sanskrit word for it. Anand We all have tiny molecules like cannabis floating around in our brains for pleasure. The hemp plant, which has been utilized by humans for nearly 5,000 years, achieves its effect primarily by hijacking this ancient cellular machinery.
The second sort of cannabinoid receptor, the CB2 receptor, is present in most of our immune tissues and is significant in helping to control our immune function, and plays a job in modulating it. Intestinal inflammation, cramps, and pain in inflammatory bowel conditions. CB2 receptors are particularly exciting targets for drug development because they don't cause the high related to cannabis that prompts CB1 receptors (which is usually an unwanted side effect).
The role of the ECS in learning and memory
We know that the ECS plays a crucial role in learning and memory as a consequence of several lines of research. The most blatant statement is that one among the essential unwanted side effects of high doses of recreational cannabis use is the temporary disruption of short-term memory. Memory returns to normal with abstinence. There have also been some sophisticated studies of how humans react acutely to the administration of THC (the energetic ingredient in cannabis) and the ways through which it alters their ability to recollect things within the short term. And Patterns observed on their functional brain imaging.
According to popular creator Michael Pollan in his best-selling book The Botany of Desire, hemp is one among the plants that humans have cultivated, or co-evolved with, for hundreds of years. This is, Pollan writes, partly because forgetting plays a big role in our brain's ability to operate without being overloaded by the info from our senses that we're continuously bombarded with. Pollen hypothesized that if we didn't forget, we wouldn't act, and cannabis helps us do this. The role ECS plays in forgetting also opens up opportunities for it. Treating PTSDa condition characterised by unpleasant, intrusive memories that folks can't help but remember, and it causes a complete syndrome of distressing and dangerous symptoms related to pathological remembering.
Role of ECS in appetite and weight reduction drugs
The cautionary tale of the drug rimonabant, a drug that blocks the CB1 receptor, is an interesting example of the central role that the ECS plays in lots of vital functions. It was developed as an anti-obesity drug. The thought was that the ECS controls appetite. We know this because, amongst other lines of evidence, cannabis gives you the “munchies,” so in case you block the CB1 receptor it should result in weight reduction. Rimonabant has been very successful in weight reduction. But, since ECS also controls mood, it needed to be withdrawn from the market on an emergency basis because people taking it were suicidal. However, we will imagine a case, as we higher understand the intricacies of the ECS, where we'd give you the chance to create a weight reduction drug that works on these cannabinoid receptors to advertise weight reduction. affects, but doesn't act on, these receptors. which controls the mode.
Discovery of ECS may result in latest drug discoveries.
The ECS study initially focused on efforts to know (and demonize) an illegal drug, but latest research has since evolved right into a rather more broad-based exploration of a surprisingly complex And what's the far-reaching system by which our bodies learn, sense, motivate, and balance themselves? We are truly within the era of ECS discovery and development of latest drugs that can assist alleviate a number of the cruelest diseases that folks (and animals) suffer from. I'm incredibly excited to see what discoveries await us to unravel the mysteries of the ECS.