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Dissociating The Psychoactive Effects Of Distinct Cannabis Compounds In The Mesocorticolimbic Circuitry, Jordan S. Zunder
Dissociating The Psychoactive Effects Of Distinct Cannabis Compounds In The Mesocorticolimbic Circuitry, Jordan S. Zunder
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
The discovery of the endocannabinoid system propelled understanding of the mechanisms of action of cannabinoid compounds. While marijuana is the most widely used illicit substance in the world, the neuropsychopharmacological mechanisms that underlie the diffuse effects of cannabis in the brain remain poorly understood. This is because marijuana smoke represents a complex mixture of chemical components, possessing dissociable psychoactive properties. Clinical evidence suggests a functional dissociation between the two main pharmacological components of cannabis, Δ9- tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). Using a combination of cortical microinfusions during two emotional learning paradigms, and single-unit in vivo electrophysiological recording, we investigated the …
Cortical Cannabinoid Modulation Of Subcortical Dopamine Activity: Implications For Emotional Processing, Brittany Draycott
Cortical Cannabinoid Modulation Of Subcortical Dopamine Activity: Implications For Emotional Processing, Brittany Draycott
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Humans receive countless sensory inputs from the outside world to which they assign a certain level of emotional significance. However, there are times when an individual may assign an abnormally high level of emotional salience to an otherwise non-significant event, resulting in an inappropriate allocation of attention as seen in the hallucinations and psychosis associated with schizophrenia. Several brain regions are involved in this emotional processing, including the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the ventral tegmental area (VTA). We have previously shown that activation of mPFC cannabinoid (CB1) receptors in rats causes a potentiated fear response to a normally non-salient …