Cannabidiol: An Overview of its Antipsychotic Properties

Abstract Schizophrenia presents positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms. The available antipsychotic drugs treat mainly the positive symptoms, having a low therapeutic efficacy against the negative and cognitive symptoms. Furthermore, they induce important motor and metabolic side effects. Therefore, the search for new therapeutic strategies is crucial. Alterations in the endocannabinoid system seem to be implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. In this scenario, cannabidiol (CBD)—a nonpsychotomimetic compound of cannabis—emerges as a potential new therapeutic strategy for schizophrenia. This chapter reviews the available data regarding the antipsychotic effects of CBD. CBD seems able to treat the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, and represents an advance with regard to the existing antipsychotics, since it might also be effective against the negative and cognitive symptoms. Moreover, significant side effects are not seen with cannabidiol treatment. However, despite the auspicious evidence, further clinical and preclinical studies are still necessary to strengthen CBD’s antipsychotic profile.