In a controlled study involving mice, researchers have found that marijuana may reduce involuntary shaking.
The researchers say that by activating a cell that reduces essential tremors and involuntary shaking, cannabis may provide a new way to treat medical conditions that impact millions.
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark conducted the study and published their findings in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Millions of people are affected by essential tremor, a neurological disorder that causes involuntary and rhythmic shaking.
This condition worsens over time and can make day-to-day life extremely difficult for some.
“We have focused on the disease essential tremor. It causes involuntary shaking, which can be extremely inhibitory and seriously reduce the patient’s quality of life,” said Associate Professor Jean-François Perrier, who headed the research project. “However, the cannabinoid might also have a beneficial effect on sclerosis and spinal cord injuries, for example, which also cause involuntary shaking.”
Postdoc Eva Maria Meier Carlsen with the university’s Department of Neuroscience, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, said“one might imagine a new approach to medical cannabis for shaking, where you — during the development of cannabis-based medicinal products — target the treatment either at the spinal cord or the astrocytes — or, at best, the astrocytes of the spinal cord.”
