CBD, a non-psychoactive compound in cannabis, may be used as a “Trojan horse”: helping slip medications across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and into brains, researchers report in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics. Researchers attached CBD to the outside surfaces of lipid nanocapsules.
Instead of loading the nanocapsules with a medication, the researchers packaged them with a fluorescent molecule so they could track the particles. In experiments with human brain cells that mimic the BBB, the researchers showed that the CBD-displaying nanocarriers caused more of the fluorescent molecule to pass through the cells than nanocarriers of equal size that lacked CBD. Similarly, when injected into healthy mice, the CBD-nanocapsules targeted about 2.5 times more of the fluorescent molecule to the animals’ brains.
Read more at: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/acs-cch041719.php