Cannabidiol
Targets in the model
23
each with a measured Kᵢ
A one-compartment model of what Cannabidiol might do over time, at a dose and by a route you choose. The affinities driving the occupancy calculation are measured and this archive holds them; the pharmacokinetics are mostly estimated, and the table at the foot of the page says which is which. The measured dossier · method
The input
First-order gastrointestinal absorption with a rate constant giving a peak near one hour, and a bioavailability reduced by first-pass metabolism. Both are class placeholders; where a compound has a published oral F it overrides this. Bioavailability for this route is 0.3 and the absorption rate constant 1.2 h⁻¹, both properties of the route rather than of Cannabidiol.
Modelled concentration
3 h 36 min
One compartment with first-order absorption. It cannot show a distribution phase, so the first minutes after an intravenous dose are the least trustworthy part of the curve. Peak effect-site concentration is 0.49 nM.
Reported milestones
No entry. Cannabidiol is not intoxicating at the doses studied, and the acute human literature reviewed here records no timed behavioral, physiological or mental effect to mark. Arkell et al. 2019 omitted a CBD-only arm for exactly that reason. An empty list is the finding, not a gap.
Model landmarks
These are not observations. Each one is a feature of the curve above, read off the figure and moving with it whenever you change a parameter.
Dose given0
The model starts here.
Peak plasma3 h 2 min
Modelled maximum of 8.18 nM total plasma concentration.
Peak effect site3 h 29 min
Modelled maximum of 0.489 nM at the effect site — the concentration the occupancy below is computed from.
Modelled receptor occupancy at 3 h 36 min
O = C/(C+Kᵢ) at the effect-site concentration above. The Kᵢ is measured and this archive holds it; the C is modelled. Equilibrium is assumed at every instant, with no receptor reserve, no active metabolite and no tolerance.
- D288%
- Transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily M member 81%
- High affinity cGMP-specific 3',5'-cyclic phosphodiesterase 9A0%
- Gamma-aminobutyric acid receptor subunit beta-20%
- CB10%
- Cytochrome P450 1A10%
- G-protein coupled receptor 550%
- Cholinesterase0%
- Cytochrome P450 2C190%
- 5-HT2C0%
- MOR0%
- KOR0%
- Cytochrome P450 1A20%
- D10%
The archive holds measurements of this pair that disagree by more than a hundredfold, so the single number beside it is not settled. The strongest is shown — in this archive the strongest measurement is usually the best one rather than an outlier, because weak values are disproportionately old tissue preparations — but the range is what the sources actually support: D2 0.07–2,800 nM across 2.
Modelled regional engagement
Occupancy at each target multiplied by that target’s transcript level in the region, summed. This product is the model speaking. A dossier’s Systems plate deliberately refuses to compute it, because there it would read as a finding; here it is an output with its assumptions on the page. Transcript is not receptor density, and a region shaded here is a region where the model says binding could occur, not one shown to be affected.
And nothing checks it. The concentration plot above carries reported milestones because human studies state times; this figure has no counterpart. The human imaging work this archive cites reports connectivity change across a cortical parcellation, which is a different quantity in a different set of regions — the atlas holds the cortex as one — so it can neither confirm nor contradict the shading here, and translating it onto these thirteen regions would assert a correspondence nobody has published.
Brain
Body
Shading is on a fixed scale — the strongest engagement reached anywhere during the whole run — so the figures dim as the compound clears instead of renormalising to whatever the current instant happens to hold. Outlines from the EMBL-EBI Anatomogram, the same plates the dossiers use.
Brain regions
- basal ganglia
- pituitary gland
- midbrain
- hypothalamus
- retina
- amygdala
- hippocampal formation
- cerebral cortex
- cerebellum
- spinal cord
Peripheral & autonomic
- salivary gland
- adrenal gland
- smooth muscle
- kidney
- skeletal muscle
- liver
- colon
- urinary bladder
- small intestine
- lung
- pancreas
- heart muscle
Parameters
The whole model is these five numbers plus the route. Each says whether anyone measured it for Cannabidiol. Edit any of them; nothing here is written back to the archive.
How long the plasma concentration takes to halve once absorption is over.
Long, like THC, and for the same reason. The archive holds eleven T1/2 rows for cannabidiol across several species and none is annotated well enough to read as a human value.
Apparent volume the dose would occupy at the plasma concentration. Large means the compound leaves the blood for tissue.
Very large: cannabidiol is exceptionally lipophilic.
The share of plasma drug not bound to protein. Only unbound drug crosses into the brain.
Heavily protein-bound, like other cannabinoids.
Unbound brain concentration divided by unbound plasma. Below 1 implies active efflux; 1 is passive equilibration.
Passive equilibration assumed.
How fast the receptor compartment follows plasma. Small values put the peak effect long after the peak concentration.
Class prior.