A medical utilization of cannabis as a treatment for insomnia

Abstract

Sleep is an essential function to a healthy life, giving an opportunity for the body to recharge and recover from the day's activities. Its lack can have significant consequences on both cognitive and physical health. Oftentimes, a significant lack of sleep is associated with sleep disorders, the most prevalent being insomnia. To successfully treat insomnia, it is imperative to understand the processes of sleep regulation in the body so that treatment can be targeted to the faulty body functions. Throughout its duration, sleep is not uniform, rather it is divided into two broad categories known as Non-REM (NREM) and REM sleep. This rest time is regulated by two internal biological mechanisms, the circadian rhythm and sleep-wake Homeostasis. Different hormones and chemicals released by these mechanisms control the feeling of awakeness and fatigue. With sleep disorders one or more of these systems malfunction or fall out of synchrony. The most prevalent sleep disorder, insomnia, has treatment options that range from simple lifestyle changes to strong medications. These are not collectively effective and there has been an immense interest among consumers regarding the use of cannabis as a sleep aid. In search to understand cannabis’s effects on the brain during sleep, cannabis was administered to test subjects and following their sacrifice, their brains were harvested and stained for specific markers in the brain that indicate neuronal activity and astrocyte activity. Neuronal and astrocyte activity were observed and it was found that their activity differed in the experimental and control groups in the suprachiasmatic nuclei, the hypothalamus and the hippocampal circuit. As a result, these were found to be involved in sleep upregulation following the administration of the drug. The preliminary results of this research show that cannabis indeed does have positive effects on sleep and promotes activity in sleep related areas of the brain.