A new study led by investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine has implicated the blocking of endocannabinoids - signaling substances that are the brain's internal versions of the psychoactive chemicals in marijuana and hashish - in the early pathology of Alzheimer's disease.
A substance called A-beta - strongly suspected to play a key role in Alzheimer's because it's the chief constituent of the hallmark clumps dotting the brains of people with Alzheimer's - may, in the disease's earliest stages, impair learning and memory by blocking the natural, beneficial action of endocannabinoids in the brain, the study demonstrates. The Stanford group is now trying to figure out the molecular details of how and where this interference occurs. Pinning down those details could pave the path to new drugs to stave off the defects in learning ability and memory that characterize Alzheimer's.
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