Ion channels and G protein-coupled receptors: Cannabidiol actions on disorders of excitability and synaptic excitatory-inhibitory ratio

Abstract Brain excitability is dysfunctional in epilepsy and overlapping neuropsychiatric conditions including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Epilepsy and ASD are often attributed to malfunctioning coordination between synaptic excitation and inhibition. Dravet syndrome (DS) is a severe form of epilepsy arising from haploinsufficiency of the SCN1A gene that encodes the voltage-gated sodium channel Nav1.1. A DS mouse model (Scn1a+/-) recapitulated essential features of DS and revealed that sodium current density was profoundly reduced in GABAergic inhibitory interneurons while pyramidal cells were