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The Endocannabinoid System and Endocannabinoidome

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Abstract

The “Endocannabinoid System” (ECS) was not discovered until early in the 1990s, as a result of research to understand the actions of Δ9-THC (THC) on the nervous system. Some of this work determined that THC works by binding to two endogenous membrane receptors that had not been identified prior. These endogenous membrane receptors were identified as G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR) and named Cannabinoid Receptor 1 (CB1) and Cannabinoid Receptor 2 (CB2). After the discovery of these receptors, it was a short path to find the endogenous ligands that pair with these receptors (Panagis et al. 2014).

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Silver, R. (2021). The Endocannabinoid System and Endocannabinoidome. In: Cital, S., Kramer, K., Hughston, L., Gaynor, J.S. (eds) Cannabis Therapy in Veterinary Medicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68317-7_1

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