Cannabinoid CB1 and Dopamine D1 Receptors Partnership in the Modulation of Emotional Neural Processing

The endocannabinoid system: a key modulator of emotions and cognition

“…The authors showed that conditional CB1 receptor knock-out animals lacking CB1 cannabinoid receptors in neurons expressing D1dopamine receptors exhibited significantly increased contextual and auditory-cued fear compared to wild-type animals, suggesting that a specific reduction of endocannabinoid signaling in neurons expressing dopamine D1 receptor is able to affect acute fear adaptation (Terzian et al, 2011 ). In their commentary on this research article, Akirav and Fattore discuss about the potential clinical implication of these findings, and indicate the future directions for research in this field (Akirav and Fattore, 2011 ).…”

Cannabinoid Receptors CB1 and CB2 Form Functional Heteromers in Brain

“…Initially, CB 1 and CB 2 receptors, like other GPCRs, were thought to have acted as single signaling receptors, but studies in the last decade have convincingly shown that certain GPCRs in a variety of different tissues can also form homodimers and even heteromers (42). For the cannabinoid receptors, heteromers have been shown to exist between CB 1 and the dopamine and adenosine receptors (43)(44)(45)(46)(47) as well as with angiotensin (AT 1 ) (48), opioid 1 (49), and orexin OX 1 receptors (50). However, to date, no studies have examined the possible interactions between CB 1 and CB 2 receptors despite the fact that they have overlapping expression and that the two receptors have been shown to impact similar cellular processes.…”