The Relationship between Muscarinic and Cannabinoid Receptors in Neuronal Excitability and Epilepsy: A Review.

Background: Of the seventy million people who suffer from epilepsy, 40 percent of them become resistant to more than one antiepileptic medication and have a higher chance of death. While the classical definition of epilepsy was due to the imbalance between excitatory glutamatergic and inhibitory γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-ergic signalling, substantial evidence implicates muscarinic receptors in the regulation of neural excitability.

Summary: Cannabinoids have shown to reduce seizure activity and neuronal excitability in several epileptic models through the activation of muscarinic receptors with drugs which modulate their activity. Cannabinoids also have been effective in reducing antiepileptic activity in pharmaco-resistant individuals; however, the mechanism of its effects in temporal lobe epilepsy is not clear.

Key messages: This review seeks to elucidate the relationship between muscarinic and cannabinoid receptors in epilepsy and neural excitability.