About this Research Topic
Neuropsychiatric disorders are severely debilitating. They can bring a great deal of suffering to the patients and their families/ health caregivers. In addition, the long-term health costs with these disorders are elevated. Although patients can benefit from the current available treatments, they are not effective for all aspects of these complex diseases, are associated with significant side-effects, and do not benefit all patients. In this sense, the search for new therapeutical targets is essential.
Recently, the cannabinoid system has been implicated in the pathophysiology of several neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, anxiety, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, among others. Much less studied in the context of these disorders, the vanilloid system shares endogenous ligands and anatomical distribution with the cannabinoid system. Considering these relationships and the need for new treatment and/or preventive strategies for these disorders, the study of drugs targeting both systems is crucial. In this sense, the aim of this Research Topic is to bring together evidence pointing to (or against) cannabinoid and vanilloid drugs as potential new therapeutical approaches with a broader spectrum of action and less severe side-effects then the current available treatments. For this purpose, basic and clinical studies are complementary and will be presented herein.
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