NEUROSCIENCE: Stout Guards of the Central Nervous System
By: R. Mechoulam and A. H. Lichtman, ScienceMag.org, 10/02/03

Endocannabinoids have paradoxical effects on the mammalian nervous system: Sometimes they block neuronal excitability and other times they augment it. In their Perspective, Mechoulam and Lichtman discuss new work (Marsicano et
al.) showing that activation of the cannabinoid receptor CB1 by the endocannabinoid anandamide protects against excitotoxic damage in a mouse model of kainic acid-induced epilepsy.

R. Mechoulam is in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products, Medical Faculty, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91120, Israel. E-mail: mechou@cc.huji.ac.ilA. H. Lichtman is in the Department of Pharmacology/Toxicology, Virginia Commonwealth University-Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, VA 23298, USA. E-mail: alichtma@hsc.vcu.edu