UNews - Behroo Mirza Agha

Can CBD help prevent cognitive decline in aging?

caroline.zentner — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 20:36:28 +0000

Neuroscientists at the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience (CCBN) at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge have gotten one step closer to a definitive answer in their research with mice.

Their study, Effects of cannabidiol (CBD) treatment on age-related cognitive decline in C57 mice, published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, has shown some promising results for certain types of cognitive functioning.

Drs. Rob McDonald (at left) and Behroo Mirza Agha are investigating the effects of CBD on the aging process in mice.

“There’s a lot of work to be done, but we’re very encouraged with this result,” says Dr. Rob McDonald, CCBN neuroscience professor and principal investigator on the study. “We need more studies; there are so many parameters that need to be worked out. And then, even when we get something that we’re very confident in, you have to go to humans and do double blind, randomized studies.”

Normal aging is associated with some cognitive decline, unlike Alzheimer’s disease where memory becomes increasingly impaired and cognitive abilities are lost. Lead researcher, Dr. Behroo Mirza Agha (BSc ’16, MSc ’18, PhD ’23), a postdoctoral fellow, and her team investigated the effects of CBD in the normal aging process of mice.

The research team took a group of ordinary mice and divided them into two groups when they reached 14 months of age (roughly equivalent to a human in their mid to late 40s). One group of mice received a daily dose (equivalent to a moderate amount) of CBD derived from Cannabis sativa obtained from ULethbridge biology professor Dr. Igor Kovalchuk’s lab. The control group received no CBD. The treatment continued daily for seven months.

Then both groups of mice were tested on several measures of functioning, including their ability to recognize a new object, walk on a balance beam, find a hidden platform in a pool of opaque water and remember in which of two environments they received a mild shock. These measures provided an indication of their object memory, motor function, emotional memory, spatial navigation and memory, which are linked to different networks in the brain, including ones centred on the perirhinal cortex, motor cortex, hippocampus and the amygdala.

“In the novel recognition task, both groups performed well; they could recognize the novel object,” says Mirza Agha. “However, when we did a one-month retention test, the mice in the CBD group could recognize the novel object, but mice in the control group didn’t.”

In the spatial navigation water task, both groups were slow to find the hidden platform in the pool during their seven training days. However, on the eighth day the CBD group found the platform faster than the control group. And when the platform was removed, the CBD group spent more time in the area where the platform had been located.

Both groups of mice performed equally well on the balance beam test, as well as remembering in which environment the shock was delivered and preferring the safe environment.

Researchers examined the brains of the mice for markers of inflammation, and they found the CBD group had less inflammation in the hippocampus, a central brain region crucial for spatial navigation and memory which has been shown to functionally deteriorate in aging and Alzheimer’s disease.

“Another take-home message from our study was that consumption of CBD for that long did not appear to have any negative effect on any of our animals,” says Mirza Agha. “However, it is important to note that not all potential effects were assessed like changes to internal organs and immune systems.”

The results clearly show that CBD improved long-term retention in the novel object recognition test and that it improved spatial memory consolidation. But does this mean that middle-aged people should start taking CBD? The researchers advise caution.

“This animal study doesn’t mean that now everybody should take CBD,” says Mirza Agha. “While it’s widely available, legal and affordable, we are now looking at its therapeutic potential and whether it’s safe to use widely as a medicine or not. Just because our study showed there were no clear negative effects of taking CBD on sensory, motor, motivational and cognitive functions at that dose doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody should take it. I think it needs to be supervised by a medical professional, and we need more research into the long-term effects of daily usage on both the brain and body.”

Ghasroddashti dives right into research - with impressive results

trevor.kenney — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 17:04:22 +0000

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge first-year science student Arashk Ghasroddashti had no expectations when he presented recently his research work at the 2018 Undergraduate Neuroscience Conference at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta. When he was awarded the prize for best poster presentation, it further ignited his passion for neuroscience research and validated his decision to begin his post-secondary career at the U of L.

Ghasroddashti encourages students to reach out to professors if they are interested in pursuing research work.

Ghasroddashti, who was born in Iran and emigrated with his family to Canada at the age of two, was initially uninterested in attending his new hometown’s university. Despite living in Lethbridge since his Grade 5 year and completing high school at Lethbridge Collegiate Institute, he had his sights set on the big city.

“I was pretty much dead set on going to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto or ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of British Columbia and applied to a few other places as well but decided that I really wanted to do research as soon as possible, so coming to a smaller university might be better for that purpose,” he says, now in his second year at U of L.

He was right. Ghasroddashti admired the research being conducted by the U of L’s Dr. Majid Mohajerani, so he contacted him before even enrolling and asked if he could sit in on one of his classes. The response he received confirmed his future path.

“People think that these professors will just ignore your emails but that’s not how it works here,” says Ghasroddashti. “They are always looking for undergraduate students and they want to help students get involved in research. Dr. Mohajerani was really responsive to that email, and very receptive to my interest and even offered for me to come to the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience for a tour of the building.”

When Ghasroddashti began his studies at the U of L, majoring in neuroscience with a minor in computer science, he quickly immersed himself in research. Working on master’s student Behroo Mirza Agha’s thesis study, Ghasroddashti participated in a project examining the role of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine and its effect on motor skill improvement in mice following stroke events.

“To investigate this, we analyzed the forelimb movements of two groups of mice after stroke; one group was stimulated so that they had increased levels of acetylcholine in the brain, and one was not,” says Ghasroddashti. “We found that motor skill improvement after stroke occurred much sooner in the stimulated mice than it did in the unstimulated mice. These results are important because they provide insight into how post-stroke motor skill recovery can potentially be improved in the future, specifically as it relates to the role of acetylcholine.”

Ghasroddashti presented the project and paper to judges at the conference, taking questions on various aspects of the study and defending the results.

“I have to give a ton of credit to Behroo for her mentorship, she is really responsible for my understanding of the project,” he says.

For Mirza Agha, the opportunity to ignite a passion for research in a first-year student was extremely satisfying.

“I watched his transformation from a novice first-year undergraduate to an intellectual self-initiative competent student,” she says. “Good students ask questions and Arashk was fearless in asking questions and clarifying the concepts, something that undergraduate students typically hesitate to do.”

The experience further solidified Ghasroddashti’s desire to continue in the field of neuroscience and has inspired an interest in medical school down the road. He credits the Mohajerani lab and its collaborative nature and breadth of study as a key inspiration.

“In addition to the clinical neuroscience project I took part in, which has now come to include Alzheimer’s research, there is work being done on everything from auditory processing to memory consolidation to computational neuroscience and data processing,” he says. “If you have an interest, you need to get in touch with a professor. Understand what that professor is doing and what their students are doing. Show an interest, take a course, go online and read the summary of the professor’s work. The opportunities are there if you really want them.”

UNews - Behroo Mirza Agha

Can CBD help prevent cognitive decline in aging?

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Ghasroddashti dives right into research - with impressive results

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