Psychopharmacology
October 2011
Laura E Wise, Stephen A Varvel, Dana E Selley et al.
Cannabis users display a constellation of withdrawal symptoms upon drug discontinuation, including sleep disturbances, irritability, and possibly memory deficits. In cannabinoid-dependent rodents, the CB(1) antagonist rimonabant precipitates somatic withdrawal and enhances forskolin-stimulated adenylyl cyclase activity in cerebellum, an effect opposite that of acutely administered...
Psychopharmacology
September 2007
Stephen A Varvel, Billy R Martin, Aron H Lichtman
Recent evidence has provided support for the incentive-sensitization model of addiction, where repeated stimulation of neural reward circuits leads to a long-lasting sensitization of mesolimbic dopaminergic activity. This phenomenon has been demonstrated with many drugs of abuse, most often by measuring progressively increased activating effects of drugs on locomotor activity, thought to...
British Journal of Pharmacology
March 2007
R G Pertwee, A Thomas, L A Stevenson et al.
To follow up in vitro evidence that Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabivarin extracted from cannabis (eDelta(9)-THCV) is a CB(1) receptor antagonist by establishing whether synthetic Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabivarin (O-4394) and Delta(8)-tetrahydrocannabivarin (O-4395) behave as CB(1) antagonists in vivo. O-4394 and O-4395 were compared with eDelta(9)-THCV as displacers of [(3)H]-CP55940 from specific...
Psychopharmacology
June 2006
Stephen A Varvel, J L Wiley, R Yang et al.
Interest persists in characterizing potential interactions between Delta(9)-tetrahydocannabinol (THC) and other marijuana constituents such as cannabidiol (CBD). Such interactions may have important implications for understanding the long-term health consequences of chronic marijuana use as well as for attempts to develop therapeutic uses for THC and other CB(1) agonists. We investigated...
Psychopharmacology
March 2005
Stephen A Varvel, E Anum, F Niyuhire et al.
The results of recent in vitro studies have underscored the important role that activation of CB(1) receptors has on GABAergic activity in brain areas associated with memory. The primary purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that the memory disruptive effects of Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (Delta(9)-THC) in vivo are mediated through GABAergic systems. Conversely, we also evaluated...