Oral formulations for highly lipophilic drugs: Impact of surface decoration on the efficacy of self-emulsifying drug delivery systems.

Aim: To evaluate the impact of the surface decoration of cannabidiol (CBD) loaded self-emulsifying drug delivery systems (SEDDS) on the efficacy of the formulations to cross the various barriers faced by orally administered drugs.

Methods: Polyethylene glycol (PEG)-free polyglycerol (PG)-based SEDDS, mixed zwitterionic phosphatidyl choline (PC)/PEG-containing SEDDS and PEG-based SEDDS were compared regarding stability against lipid degrading enzymes, surface properties, permeation across porcine mucus, cellular uptake and cytocompatibility.

Results: SEDDS with a size of about 200 nm with narrow size distributions were developed and loaded with 20-21 % of CBD.

The therapeutic potential of purified cannabidiol.

The use of cannabidiol (CBD) for therapeutic purposes is receiving considerable attention, with speculation that CBD can be useful in a wide range of conditions. Only one product, a purified form of plant-derived CBD in solution (Epidiolex), is approved for the treatment of seizures in patients with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, Dravet syndrome, or tuberous sclerosis complex. Appraisal of the therapeutic evidence base for CBD is complicated by the fact that CBD products sometimes have additional phytochemicals (like tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)) present, which can make the identification of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) in positive studies difficult.

A zinc fixative for 3D visualization of cerebral capillaries and pericytes.

Background: A large volume of data indicates that disturbances in the morphology and function of the capillary wall may play a causal role in several types of neurodegenerative disorders. We present a highly reproducible staining method for investigating the cerebral capillary network and the pericyte cells within the basement membrane in mice - a specie specific challenging task when uniform staining in thick sections was needed for confocal microscopy or a quantitative analysis, e.g.

Quantitative analysis of the capillary network of aged APPswe/PS1dE9 transgenic mice.

A combination of immunohistochemical and stereological techniques were used to investigate the capillary network in the cerebral cortex of 18-month-old APPswe/PS1dE9 transgenic (Tg) mice and control littermates. Data regarding total capillary length, segment number, diffusion radius, and pericyte number are presented. The total length was 60 meters and there was a one-to-one relationship between the number of capillary segments and pericytes in both groups.

Cholinergic axon length reduced by 300 meters in the brain of an Alzheimer mouse model.

Modern stereological techniques have been used to show that the total length of the cholinergic fibers in the cerebral cortex of the APPswe/PS1deltaE9 mouse is reduced by almost 300 meters at 18 months of age and has a nonlinear relationship to the amount of transgenetically-induced amyloidosis. These data provide rigorous quantitative morphological evidence that Alzheimer's-like amyloidosis affects the axons of the cholinergic enervation of the cerebral cortex.