Anandamide (N-arachidonoylethanolamide) is a lipid signal molecule that was the first endogenous agonist for cannabinoid receptors to be discovered. Cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1) is widely distributed in neurons and nonneuronal cells in brain and peripheral organs including sperm, eggs, and preimplantation embryos. A study by Wang and colleagues in this issue of the JCI demonstrates that a ...

Anandamide is a ligand of the endocannabinoid system. Animals show a depletion following repeated Δ(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) administration but the effect of cannabis use on central nervous system levels of endocannabinoids has not been previously examined in humans. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of the endocannabinoids anandamide, 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) and related lipids were t...

Synthetic cannabinoids produce behavioral analgesia and suppress pain neurotransmission, raising the possibility that endogenous cannabinoids serve naturally to modulate pain. Here, the development of a sensitive method for measuring cannabinoids by atmospheric pressure-chemical ionization mass spectrometry permitted measurement of the release of the endogenous cannabinoid anandamide in the per...

Mammalian spermatozoa are not able to fertilize an egg immediately upon ejaculation. They acquire this ability during their transit through the female genital tract in a process known as capacitation. The mammalian oviduct acts as a functional sperm reservoir providing a suitable environment that allows the maintenance of sperm fertilization competence until ovulation occurs. After ovulation, s...

BACKGROUND Anandamide, an endogenous lipid, activates both cannabinoid (CB(1)) and vanilloid (VR1) receptors, both of which are co-expressed in rat dorsal root ganglion (DRG) cells. Activation of either receptor results in analgesia but the relative contribution of CB(1) and VR1 in anandamide-induced analgesia remains controversial. Here we compare the in vitro pharmacology of recombinant and e...

There is recent behavioral evidence that fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) inhibitors produce a subset of cannabinoid receptor agonist effects, suggesting both anandamide-specific behavioral functions and possible regional differences in FAAH inhibitory effects. Here, we introduce a novel imaging method to quantify regional differences in brain FAAH activity. Upon intravenous [3H]anandamide adm...

In the present study we demonstrate that anandamide, the most important endogenous cannabinoid, markedly induced apoptosis in Chang liver cells, an immortalized non-tumor cell line derived from normal liver tissue, while it induced only modest effects in a number of hepatoma cell lines. The apoptotic effect was reduced by methyl-beta-cyclodextrin, a membrane cholesterol depletor, suggesting an ...

T he endocannabinoids have emerged as important intercellular signals in the nervous system. The fatty acid amide arachidonylethanolamide (anandamide) is the prototypical endocannabinoid, i.e., an endogenous ligand of the G proteincoupled cannabinoid receptor in the brain, CB1, which binds the main psychoactive component of marijuana and other derivatives of Cannabis sativa (1). After a rise in...

The article by Offertaler and colleagues in this issue contains evidence pointing to a novel vascular site of action of cannabinoids. The precise vascular actions of endogenous cannabinoids have been surprising complex and controversial (see Hillard, 2000; Ralevic et al., 2002; Randall et al., 2002). In 1995, Ellis et al. demonstrated that anandamide caused cerebrovascular vasodilatation in the...

Glutamatergic synaptic transmission within the striatum and prefrontal cortex regulates the neuronal synthesis of endocannabinoids. Because a primary role of dopamine is to modulate this excitatory transmission, we tested the hypothesis that dopaminergic transmission modulates endocannabinoid content in the limbic forebrain. Liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry was used to determine endogeno...