The method used to locate appropriate studies for use in this assignment was to conduct a search on Ebscohost. To conduct the search, the search terms: therapeutic effects of CBD, effects of cannabinoids on the infant brain, CBD effects of seizure disorders in children, Dravet syndrome, and negative effects of CBD were used. These search terms resulted in over 4,500 potential studies. The search results were then narrowed to articles written in English in the past five years, which narrowed the results to approximately 320. The titles of the articles were examined to determine which articles would be likely to contain the information needed for the assignment, and when appropriate articles were located, the abstracts were compared to find those articles that contained the majority of what the researcher wanted to cover in the assignment. When the most appropriate journal articles were located, the researcher chose four that did not all offer the same information in an attempt to present the issue from the greatest degree of objectivity possible.
In several studies on both mice and humans that tested the effectiveness of CBD on reducing febrile seizures caused by Dravet syndrome, this treatment was found to be very effective. By the end of the studies, approximately 11% of participants were essentially seizure-free, while the remainder had their seizures reduced dramatically (Kaplan, Stella, Catteralla, & Westenbroek, 2017; Maa & Figi, 2014; Devinsky et al., 2017). CBD also proved effective in treating other symptoms of the seizure activity such as inattentiveness, sleeplessness, and poor mood. CBD also seemed to help lessen or eliminate certain Autism-related symptoms which were also believed to be seizure-related in study participants.
In a parent interview following one study, parents reported that their children had been on, on average, at least 10 antiseizure medications that were ineffective before trying CBD (Porter & Jacobson, 2013). The success with CBD made it possible for every child in the study to stop taking other antiseizure medications while living with far fewer seizures per day. Similar effects have been found in studies conducted on mice. The participants in these trials were given a number of antiseizure medications which proved to be ineffective before trying to treat their seizures with CBD (Kaplan et al., 2017). Ultimately, CBD showed to be the most effective treatment for their condition. CBD has also been shown to be effective treating and eliminating seizures associated with other forms of infantile seizure, and with seizures that are not febrile in nature (Maa & Figi, 2014).
In the treatment group the number and severity of seizures was reduced at a greater percentage than in the control group. Other benefits also occurred, such as greater alertness, better sleep/wake patterns, better mood, and a lessening of any Autism-related symptoms (Devinsky et al., 2017). Adverse effects that were seen more frequently in the CBD group than in the placebo group included diarrhea, vomiting, fatigue, pyrexia, somnolence, and abnormal results on liver-function tests (Devinsky et al., 2017).
There have not been enough double-blind, placebo-controlled studies conducted on the effectiveness of CBD on the brains of infants with Dravet syndrome. Many more of this type of study will need to be conducted to truly know if the results that have been found up to this point in the current studies is consistent across all types of study participants. Until more studies are conducted, the results from the previously performed studies should be looked at with a certain degree of suspicion, as they have not been repeated or verified through new studies with different participants. There should also be more study performed on the potential negative effects of CBD on infants with Dravet syndrome. Those previously found have been are diarrhea, vomiting, fatigue, pyrexia, somnolence, and abnormal results on liver-function tests (Devinsky et al., 2017). However, CBD has only been used for a short time to treat illness at all, and an even briefer time to treat illnesses in infants and children.
Therefore, it would be necessary to conduct studies that tested how exactly CBD effects the young brain, both positively and negatively. Without such studies, it could be possible that treating young children with CBD could be harming their brains in ways that are not readily apparent but will be discovered later in life. While CBD therapy seems to be a very valuable tool when used to treat febrile seizures in children, if it causes even more severe problems with use later in life, it is important to weigh the costs and benefits of this type of therapy. This would be the only way that physicians and parents could make an informed decision about whether to use this drug treatment on a specific child.
CBD had been used to effectively treat a number of serious illnesses in adults, but its use to treat infants and young children with Dravet syndrome is still in the experimental stages. While the studies that have been conducted have shown it to be a very effective treatment, there are some unanswered and untested fields that need to be looked at before the medical community can totally sign off on this treatment method. The observed negative effects should be further studied to determine if they will lead to long-lasting deficits, and potential negative effects which have not yet been found need to be addressed. Treating young children with a drug therapy can have very different results than treating adults with the same treatment. Therefore, further studies with children need to be conducted before this drug treatment can be totally approved by the medical community.
