2026 Consortium Grant Awardees and their Project Narratives and Anticipated Impacts

This project investigates how use of medical marijuana (MMJ) and marijuana components influence mucosal immune function and gut microbiome composition in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), with a focus on IL-22–dependent epithelial defense pathways. This will lead to the identification of immune and microbiome signatures associated with MMJ use in IBD and clarify how cannabinoid signaling affects intestinal barrier function and inflammation.

This study will provide evidence to help clinicians and patients make more informed decisions regarding MMJ use and contribute to future clinical guidance and policy decisions concerning its safety and therapeutic application in gastrointestinal disease.

The aims of this study are to: (1) to quantify the pain-relief effects of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and THC + cannabidiol (CBD) vs. non-users; (2) to map the molecular mechanisms of MMJ using 12 targeted neuroinflammatory biomarkers; and (3) to identify specific biomarkers/pathways that mediate the synergistic effects of THC+CBD.

The anticipated impact is development of a biomarker-driven, anti-neuroinflammatory framework to improve MMJ-driven geriatric clinical pain outcomes.

Cannabis use among older adults may have therapeutic value in preventing and ameliorating age-related neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease (AD). This study will examine the interactions between THC use and AD progression, the potential interaction of THC with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) that are often prescribed for prodromal neuropsychiatric symptoms, as well as any unrecognized therapeutic benefits of restoring serotonergic signaling in the AD brain using THC-based compounds. 

New insights on whether tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) delays the onset of AD by potentiating serotonergic signaling in critical brain circuits may inform the development of novel pharmacotherapies for early AD. 

Cannabis use during adolescence has been linked to an increased risk for psychiatric disorders in individuals with an elevated genetic burden for these disorders, who are also more likely to use cannabis, complicating studies of gene-by-environment (GxE) interactions. This study will examine how adolescent cannabis exposure impacts behavior and cell type-specific gene expression using a mouse model of high genetic risk for psychosis.

Understanding the interplay between psychiatric genetic liability and cannabis exposure at a critical developmental timepoint could have important public health and policy implications. The preclinical findings of this study could help inform the counseling of individuals at risk of psychosis, as well as individuals with psychosis regarding the medical use of marijuana.

The relationship between cannabis use and depression is not clear, and the risk can be different for each age group. This project will use AI tools to identify cannabis use and depression in large-scale electronic health record (EHR) data. Pharmacoepidemiologic methods will be applied to measure the association between cannabis use and depression-related outcomes, including suicidality, separately in younger adults and older adults.

Evidence generated will enable medical cannabis providers, public health officials, and policymakers to make informed decisions and communicate safety risks for each age group. The AI pipeline developed can be used to study other safety signals for medical cannabis clinical outcomes.

This project will evaluate the behavioral and neurobiological effects of chronic voluntary cannabis consumption in a translational animal model of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), while controlling for key clinically relevant factors, including the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to cannabidiol (CBD) ratio, sex, and stress susceptibility.   

The research will generate high-quality preclinical evidence on the efficacy and safety of oral medical cannabis formulations for reducing PTSD symptoms, thus informing future clinical trials, patient care, and evidence-based policy decisions.

This proposal focuses on young adults (18 – 35 years old) who self-medicate with cannabis and disproportionately use higher-risk, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-dominant products, yet face limited access to cannabis-informed clinical guidance and harm-reduction education. By developing and pilot testing ANCHOR, a cannabis nurse-led brief online intervention, this study will identify why THC-dominant products are preferred and use those findings to deliver product-specific harm-reduction counseling and referrals to reduce problematic use.

Project findings may inform clinical decision-making about patient education, lower-risk use strategies, and referral pathways within medical marijuana (MMJ) care and may provide policy-relevant evidence to support integration of trained cannabis nurses into MMJ treatment models and guide standards for harm-reduction counseling.

The glymphatic system (GS), a waste clearance system for the removal of toxic waste products from the brain, plays a role in neurodegenerative diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS). GS activity is regulated by sleep and presents a potential mechanistic bidirectional pathway linking sleep disruption with MS progression. This study proposes to evaluate the effect of cannabis on GS function and sleep in people with MS (pwMS).

This proof-of-concept study is the first of its kind to investigate the effect of cannabis on glymphatic clearance in relation to sleep in general, and in pwMS in particular. The findings are expected to further shed light on the therapeutic benefits of cannabis and its ability to modulate sleep and GS clearance in pwMS.