The Endocannabinoid System: Part 1. Seek & Ye Shall Find.

The endocannabinoid system (ECS) has been hiding in plain sight, and has been developing since the time when multicellular animals and their nervous systems were just forming.  That’s been a while---likely about 600 million years ago. This even predates the cannabis plant, which evolved about 28 million years ago, and humans, which evolved about 3 million years ago. 

But it wasn’t until the late 20th century that we discovered we had this system.  And it’s not just in us---this system is so important, that nearly all animals, except insects, protozoa and sponges (and a nematode worm or two) have an ECS. 

Despite its long history of use as a medicine, dating back to about 5,000 years ago, the cannabis plant remained unexplored in its pharmacology. Very little was known about how and why cannabis affected humans.  Scientists wanted to know more. Curious researchers and good teamwork made it happen, with thanks to the cannabis plant itself. 

Morphine from opium poppy was discovered in the early 1800’s, cocaine from coca leaves was isolated in the late 1860’s, but inquiring minds had not unlocked the cannabis plant’s deeper mysteries, nor how it affected humans until the 1940’s. Although the effects of THC were well-known, both medically and recreationally, they were thought to be general effects. So the concept of a cannabinoid receptor system in humans was not seriously considered. 

How did this system come to light? In the early 1940’s, both THC and CBD compounds were first extracted from the cannabis plant.  Later, scientists Raphael Mechoulam and his team working in Israel, discovered THC’s structure in 1964. This inspired other researchers, including William Devane and his group in St. Louis in 1988, who discovered the first receptor (the CB1 receptor) for cannabis in humans. 

Devane then joined Mechoulam’s lab, and in 1992 they isolated the first endogenous cannabinoid (endocannabinoid), anandamide, named after the Sanskrit word for “bliss”. The CB1 receptor now had a  chemical made in humans, anandamide, and a similar one made in plants, THC, that both fit into the brain’s CB1 receptor.

In 1993 the second receptor (the CB2 receptor) was discovered by Sean Munro and his team.  Then Mechoulam’s group, still researching cannabis’ clinical uses, discovered the second endocannabinoid, 2AG, in 1995. Mechoulam had reasoned that the body wouldn’t make a receptor unless it was creating its own chemicals similar to the plant’s compounds. Now with two endocannabinoids and 2 receptors, the research floodgates broke open. More receptors and endocannabinoids were found in every human tissue, organ and fluid researched so far, and the realization of a system, the ECS, was born. Mechoulam’s assumption was correct.

Endocannabinoids and the ECS function to maintain homeostasis or balance in the human body. Not just significant, the ECS is critical, and is one of the most important modulatory systems in our whole organism, as it controls most of our body’s functions.  

(Stay tuned for more about this amazing system, and what turns it on…)