Two Neuropsychological Conditions Helped By CBD

While there are some opposing effects of CBD both causing and reducing anxiety, depending on the dose and level of THC, It does help with inhibiting anxiety in a similar manner as anti anxiety medication. Specifically, in a study of 24 people with generalized social anxiety disorder, those who took 600 mg of CBD before a public speaking test had less anxiety than those who were given a placebo.

The second condition that CBD use has shown promise for is that it can influence certain brain circuits that are responsible for addiction and drug seeking behaviors. In particular, CBD can help to reduce the compulsive behaviors and stress response. This was shown in a study of five years ago.

The studies involved animals and humans, and showed that CBD could help with addiction to opioids and brain stimulants, and also could benefit tobacco dependence. Then, in 2019, another study was used, which was a double blind, randomized trial with placebos. It found that CBD could also be beneficial to people with heroin use disorder. When the heroin drug was used in study subjects who had not taken heroin, CBD reduced the craving and anxiety which had been induced by drug cues, as compared to the placebo. In addition, CBD also decreased physiological symptoms, such as salivary cortisol levels and heart rate. The research showed that these effects were also present one week later. This suggests that the results of the CBD on the drug seeking response could be longer lasting.

Follow up studies are needed to look into the use of CBD for substance use disorder. These conditions are prevalent in life today, both social anxiety disorder and heroin use disorder, so the potential already illustrated by CBD shows hope and promise.