Keep Your Brain From Going to Pot
The active chemical in marijuana can do more for your head than give you a high -- it could protect your brain in emergency situations.
An altered version of cannabis could be the first drug ever to shield the brain from the cascade of injury that follows head trauma.
When the brain is injured in a fall or car accident, the damage does not stop after the impact. When cells in the brain die, they send signals to nearby cells to die also, causing continued, uncontrollable injury. Researchers have been trying to find a way to stop this domino effect for decades, but nothing has worked well yet.
Researchers at Pharmos, a pharmaceutical company in Iselin, New Jersey, are seeing promising results with their injectable synthetic cannabis drug. While pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer and Bayer have failed at developing emergency treatments for head trauma, Pharmos scientists say theirs will be the one to succeed.
The drug, called Dexanabinol, is a synthetic version of the active chemical in cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol, known commonly as THC. The researchers flip its molecules around to form a mirror image of THC. In this form it doesn't cause some of the potential negative effects of hashish or marijuana, such as low blood pressure or impairment of motor function.
See more on the wired website
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