Patent Abstract:
the present invention relates to the use of tetrahydrocannabivarin in the treatment of nausea and vomiting . preferably the thcv is isolated and / or purified from cannabis plant extracts . preferably the nausea and / or vomiting is caused by the effects of a medication such as a chemotherapeutic agent .

Detailed Description:
the compounds sr141716 ( sr ) and am251 produce nausea and potentiate toxin - induced nausea . here , the phytocannabinoid , tetrahydrocannabivarin ( thcv ) was evaluated to determine whether it also produced nausea and potentiated toxin - induced nausea . the examples below demonstrate the effectiveness of the phytocannabinoid in the rodent model of conditioned nausea . if a compound produces nausea it is expected to : 1 ) produce conditioned gaping reactions to a novel flavour with which it is paired ( example 1 ), and 2 ) enhance the nauseating effects of another toxin , i . e ., producing potentiation of licl - induced conditioned gaping ( example 2 ). if thcv does not produce gaping and does not enhance licl - induced gaping , it is likely that this compound will be useful in the treatment of nausea and vomiting . animals : procedures were according to the canadian council on animal care ( ccac ). the protocol was approved by the institutional animal care committee , which is accredited by the ccac . naïve male sprague - dawley rats , obtained from charles river laboratories ( st constant , quebec ) were single - housed in shoebox cages in the colony room at an ambient temperature of 21 ° c . with a 12 / 12 light / dark schedule ( lights off at 8 am ) and maintained on ad - libitum food and water . drugs and materials : all cannabinoid compounds were prepared in a vehicle ( veh ) of ethanol / cremophor ( sigma )/ saline ( sal ; 1 : 1 : 18 ) and administered intraperitonally ( i . p .). licl ( sigma ) was prepared in a 0 . 15 m solution with sterile water and administered i . p . at a volume of 20 ml / kg ( 127 . 2 mg / kg ) in example 2 . sr was prepared at 2 . 5 , 10 and 20 mg / kg and administered at a volume of 2 ml / kg . cbdv was prepared at 2 . 5 and 10 mg / kg and administered at a volume of 2 ml / kg . a high dose of cbdv was prepared at 200 mg / kg and administered at a volume 10 ml / kg . thcv was prepared at 2 . 5 , 10 and 20 mg / kg and administered at a volume of 2 ml / kg . am251 was prepared at 10 mg / kg and administered at a volume of 2 ml / kg . thc was prepared at 2 . 5 and 10 mg / kg and administered at a volume of 2 ml / kg . procedures : rats were implanted with intraoral cannulae under isofluorane anesthesia . following recovery from surgery ( at least 3 days ), the rats received an adaptation trial in which they were placed in the taste reactivity ( tr ) chamber with their cannula attached to an infusion pump for fluid delivery . water was infused into their intraoral cannula for 2 min at the rate of 1 ml / min . the tr chambers were made of clear plexiglas ( 22 . 5 × 26 × 20 cm ) that sat on a table with a clear glass top . a mirror beneath the chamber on a 45 ° angle facilitated viewing of the ventral surface of the rat to observe orofacial responses . on the day following the adaptation trial , the rats received a conditioning trial during which they were intraorally infused with 0 . 1 % saccharin solution for 2 min at the rate of 1 ml / min . immediately after the saccharin infusion , they ( n = 10 / group , except am251 with n = 6 ) were injected with either : veh ( 1 / 1 / 18 : alcohol / cremaphor / saline ), 10 mg / kg sr , 20 mg / kg sr , 10 mg / kg am251 , 10 mg / kg thcv , 20 mg / kg thcv , 10 mg / kg cbdv or 200 mg / kg cbdv . seventy two hours after the conditioning trial , the rats were returned to the tr chamber and intraorally infused with 0 . 1 % saccharin solution and their orofacial reactions were video recorded with the feed from the video camera fire - wired into a computer . the video tapes are later scored ( at 1 / 2 speed ) by a trained observer blind to the experimental conditions for the behaviour of gaping ( large openings of the mouth and jaw , with lower incisors exposed ). the videotapes were scored by 2 trained raters , resulting in an extremely high inter - rater reliability score ( r = 0 . 97 ). the cb 1 inverse agonists / antagonists , sr and am251 , produced more conditioned gaping reactions ( nausea - like reactions ) than any other group and none of the other drugs tested produced gaping that differed from veh controls . fig1 presents the mean (± sem ) number of gapes displayed by the various groups in example 1 . the one - way analysis of variance ( anova ) revealed a main effect of group , f ( 7 , 74 )= 4 . 9 ; p & lt ; 0 . 001 . by lsd comparison tests , all doses of the cb 1 inverse agonists / antagonists ( sr and am251 ) produced significantly more conditioned gaping when paired with saccharin solution than any of the other compounds ( p &# 39 ; s & lt ; 0 . 05 ). as well , none of the other compounds ( at any dose tested ) significantly differed from veh controls . sr produced marginally more gaping at 20 mg / kg than at 10 mg / kg ( p = 0 . 057 ). at all doses tested , thcv did not produce apparent inverse agonist properties when compared with veh , but sr and am251 both produced the inverse agonist effect of nausea that is not produced by receptor neutral cb 1 antagonists . the results of example 1 revealed that when explicitly paired with a novel saccharin solution , neither cbdv ( 10 or 200 mg / kg ) nor thcv ( 10 or 20 mg / kg ) produced the nausea - like profile of conditioned gaping produced by the cb 1 receptor inverse agonists , sr and am251 . since conditioned gaping in rats is produced only by compounds that produce nausea and emesis in other species ( see parker and limebeer , 2008 ), these results suggest that thcv should not cause nausea , an effect that appears to be caused by the cb 1 inverse agonist effects of sr and am251 . the potential of thcv to potentiate conditioned gaping caused by licl animals and drugs and materials were as described in example 1 above . following recovery from intraoral cannulation surgery , the rats received the adaptation trial to the tr test as described in example 1 above . on the day of conditioning ( saccharin palatability test ), the rats were injected with veh ( n = 10 ), 2 . 5 mg / kg sr ( n = 10 ), 2 . 5 mg / kg thc ( n = 6 ), 10 mg / kg thc ( n = 7 ), 2 . 5 mg / kg thcv ( n = 10 ) or 10 mg / kg thcv ( n = 6 ), 2 . 5 mg / kg cbdv ( n = 10 ) or 200 mg / kg cbdv ( n = 13 ). thirty min later , each rat was intraorally infused with 0 . 1 % saccharin solution while their orofacial responses were video recorded from the mirror beneath the chamber . immediately following the 2 min intraoral infusion of saccharin , the rats were injected with 20 ml / kg or 0 . 15 m licl . seventy - two hours later , the rats received a drug - free test trial , during which they received a 2 min intraoral infusion of 0 . 1 % saccharin solution and the frequency of gaping was measured . the videotapes were later scored ( at 1 / 2 speed ) by an observer blind to the experimental conditions for the hedonic reaction of tongue protrusions ( at conditioning and testing ). as well , to determine other non - specific effects of the drug during conditioning , the conditioning tapes were scored for bouts of active locomotion ( forward movement of paws on the floor of the cage ). fig2 presents the mean (± sem ) number of conditioned gaping reactions during the drug - free test , 72 hr following the conditioning trial . the one - way anova revealed a significant group effect , f ( 7 , 62 )= 8 . 0 ; p & lt ; 0 . 001 . subsequent lsd tests revealed that only group 2 . 5 sr displayed potentiated licl - induced gaping reactions relative to group veh ( p & lt ; 0 . 025 ). significantly the group that received 10 mg / kg thcv displayed no gaping reactions ( p & lt ; 0 . 001 ). the groups that received 2 . 5 mg cbdv ( p = 0 . 08 ) or 2 . 5 mg thcv ( p = 0 . 07 ) showed marginally attenuated licl - induced gaping reactions relative to group veh . the groups that received 200 mg cbdv ( p & lt ; 0 . 05 ), 2 . 5 mg thc ( p & lt ; 0 . 02 ) or 10 mg thc ( p & lt ; 0 . 01 ) significantly attenuated the licl - induced gaping reactions . 2 . 5 mg thcv ( p = 0 . 07 ) showed marginally attenuated licl - induced gaping reactions relative to group veh . this pattern of results suggests that the only compound that enhanced licl - induced nausea was 2 . 5 mg / kg of sr141716 . at a dose of 10 mg / kg , thcv actually eliminated licl - induced nausea , to a much greater degree than an equivalent dose of thc , with the added benefit that thcv is not psychoactive like thc . a dose of 200 mg / kg cbdv produced a statistically significant anti - nausea effect , but this effect was less than that produced by the high dose of thcv . this example evaluated the potential of thcv to potentiate nausea produced by licl . at doses sub - threshold for producing nausea on their own ( 2 . 5 mg / kg ), both sr ( parker and mechoulam , 2003 ) and am251 ( limebeer et al ., 2010 ) pre - treatments prior to a saccharin - licl pairing potentiated the nausea produced by licl , as shown by potentiated gaping displayed in the subsequent drug - free test trial 72 hours after conditioning . the group that was pre - treated with 2 . 5 mg / kg sr showed potentiated gaping relative to all other groups the thcv , cbdv or thc pre - treated groups displayed attenuated licl - induced gaping reactions relative to veh . interestingly , the group that received 10 mg / kg thcv showed no gaping reactions during intraoral infusion of saccharin that had been previously paired with licl , suggesting that it completely blocked licl - induced nausea , an effect evident with drugs that are anti - nausea agents such as ondansetron . at a low dose ( 2 . 5 mg / kg ) thcv acts as a cb 1 receptor antagonist ( thomas et al , 2005 ) and does not enhance licl - induced nausea evidenced as potentiation of gaping ( like am4113 ), suggesting that it is a neutral antagonist . on the other hand , at a higher doses of thcv ( e . g . 10 mg / kg ), licl - induced gaping was suppressed . in conclusion , at all doses tested , unlike sr and am251 , thcv neither : 1 ) produced conditioned gaping on its own when explicitly paired with saccharin solution , nor 2 ) potentiated licl - induced conditioned gaping . thcv produced an anti - nausea - like effect in example 2 ; that is thcv blocked licl - induced nausea at a dose greater than 2 . 5 mg / kg ( in rats ). this would equate to a human equivalent dose of greater than 0 . 4 mg / kg . taken together , these results suggest that that thcv may be a promising therapeutic , devoid of symptoms associated with cb 1 receptor inverse agonism and without the psychotropic effect associated with cb 1 agonism . thcv is as such a potential candidate for use in the treatment of nausea . beyer c e , dwyer j m , piesla m j , platt b j , shen r , rahman z , et al . 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