Impact of cannabidiol and lamotrigine on parameters of action potentials in sciatic nerves of frogs

Cannabidiol causes inhibitory effects on sodium channels, but its action on nerve impulses is not understood. Lamotrigine blocks the nerve impulses, however, it is not known if this action is of extracellular or intracellular origin. With the use of nerve chambers, we are hoping to elucidate this unknown mechanism. We hypothesize that these two chemicals may modify components of action potentials of nerve fibers in frogs. Action potential recording was made possible by the IWorx Data Quest system and a nerve chamber. Action potential data was analyzed by looking at two different components—the peaks of depolarization and the difference between the peak of depolarization and the nadir of repolarization. For every 50 minutes of recording, the data was divided into three clusters—before chemicals, after 10 minutes of treatment, and 30 minutes after treatment. In frogs, we found the high dosage (1.0 milligram/milliliter (mg/mL)) of cannabidiol had no effect on the maximum amplitude of depolarization among the three data clusters—saline, 10 minutes after cannabidiol, and 30 minutes after cannabidiol. The high dosage of cannabidiol also had no effect on the repolarization of action potentials when compared among the above three data clusters. In addition, in frogs we found the low dosage (0.1 mg/mL) of cannabidiol showed a significant difference in the maximum amplitude of depolarization when the saline data cluster was compared to the 10-minute cluster after cannabidiol cluster. Likewise, there was a significant difference on the repolarization of action potentials when the saline data cluster was compared to the 10-minute cluster after cannabidiol cluster and when the 10-minute cluster was compared to the 30-minute cluster after cannabidiol cluster. High dosage of lamotrigine showed a significant difference on the maximum amplitude of depolarization when the saline cluster was compared to the 10-minute cluster after lamotrigine on action potentials. Low dosage of lamotrigine data is currently being collected to be analyzed and presented cumulatively with all the data. This research is being supported and funded by the Department of the Biological Sciences at the University of Tennessee at Martin. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.