overview: New research seeks to better understand how cannabis use alters the oral microbiome and how this affects neurodegenerative diseases.
sauce: Medical College of South Carolina
Inspiration comes when you least expect it. For Wei Jiang, MD, professor of microbiology and immunology at the Medical College of South Carolina (MUSC), inspiration came to him on a smoke-filled boat tour around Amsterdam during an international conference in 2018.
“Everybody smoked cannabis except me,” Jan said. “I was studying the microbiome at the time, so after talking to them, I learned that their oral health was affected by smoking, and I wanted to understand this further.
Since then, Jiang has focused her research on how smoking cannabis alters the oral microbiome, the community of bacteria that lives in the mouth. Provided pilot funding for research.
Now, with a recent $3.7 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Jiang and her collaborator Sylvia Fitting, Ph.D. dig in. It changed the oral microbiome and caused neurological disease effects.
“This will be the first study to examine the oral microbiome altered by cannabis and its effects on the brain,” said Jiang.
Cannabis is the most widely used drug in the United States and can have positive effects on the psyche, including reducing anxiety. But long-term use can impair memory, learning and motor skills, Jiang said. Smoke also contains harmful compounds from combustion that affect oral health.
Alterations in oral bacteria are associated with cardiovascular disease, premature birth, and even Alzheimer’s disease. Unnatural changes in the oral microbiome, known as dysbiosis, can cause harmful bacteria to grow in the mouth, enter the bloodstream, and damage other organs, such as the brain.
Jiang and her collaborators showed in a December 2021 EBioMedicine study that frequent cannabis use alters the oral microbiome. They found abnormally high levels of the bacterium Actinomyces meyeri, A. meyeri, in frequent cannabis users, but not in tobacco or cocaine users.
“Generally, the amount of A. meyeri is It should be very low in a healthy oral microbiome,” Jiang said.
Mice orally exposed to A. meyeri for 6 months showed increased inflammation and increased amyloid beta protein in the brain. These proteins are thought to be associated with long-term memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease.
“After seeing these changes in mice fed this bacterium, we were very intrigued about what was going on in their brains.
New grant funding will allow the team to investigate the mechanisms underlying associations between high levels of A. meyeri in the oral microbiome of frequent cannabis users and neurological disease.
“Psychological dependence on drugs can have adverse neurological effects, but we don’t know what causes these effects in heavy cannabis users,” said Jiang. “We know oral health affects mental health, but we don’t know exactly what role the microbiome plays.”
Jiang’s previous work had shown that cannabis-altered oral microbiomes were involved in neurological changes, but did not specifically examine which components of cannabis caused those changes. Cannabis contains both psychoactive (THC) and non-psychoactive (CBD) compounds, which interact with the brain and nervous system in different ways.
“We now want to identify specific effects of THC and CBD on oral microbiome abnormalities and mental health,” said Jiang.
Jiang plans to expose mice to varying levels of THC and CBD to see the effects on A. meyeri levels. in the oral microbiome.
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“We believe that long-term exposure to THC, but not CBD, increases levels of A. meyeri in saliva and has detrimental neurological effects in mice,” said Jiang.
In the new study, Jan also moves beyond mouse models to humans with cannabis use disorders to examine how changes in the oral microbiome affect memory.
“Memory-related impairments would be expected to be associated with higher levels of A. meyeri in frequent cannabis users compared to non-users,” said Jiang.
Jiang’s research highlights the importance of oral health and its complex relationship with other diseases.
“People who use cannabis frequently should pay particular attention to oral hygiene,” Jiang said.
With the support of a NIDA grant, Jiang plans to lay the groundwork for developing treatments that target the oral microbiome of addicted cannabis users with neuropathy.
“If our hypothesis is correct, therapeutic strategies targeting A. meyeri may reduce irregularities in brain function in frequent cannabis users,” said Jiang. “In the future, it may also be useful to screen for specific bacteria as biomarkers for various diseases that affect the brain, such as Alzheimer’s disease.”
About this neuroscience research news
author: Kimberly McGee
sauce: Medical College of South Carolina
contact: Kimberly McGee – Medical College of South Carolina
image: image is public domain
