Hot-boxing rats and brain neuroscience, with Dr. Robert Laprairie

Researchers in Robert Laprairie's lab are hard to miss, with their tie-dyed lab coats, overseeing lab rats in iPad-sized chambers filled with cannabis smoke.

An associate professor of pharmacy, Dr. Laprairie and his team are trying to unravel the mysteries of human neurotransmitters and cannabinoid receptors. 

"Cannabis is challenging. There's a lot of bureaucracy, there's a lot of stuff that gets in the way. So there was a knowledge gap," said Laprairie.

His fascination with the unknown began early, as he repeatedly borrowed the same book about the stars and our solar system from the Saskatoon Public Library.

Laprairie never thought of himself as a career scientist, initially enrolling in the College of Education to become a high school science teacher. It was a part-time job tending to canola for Agriculture Canada that made him re-think his plans, as he learned more about treating disease in plants.

By the time he arrived at Dalhousie to complete his graduate studies, he was studying how to  'turn up the volume' on damaged cannabinoid receptors in patients with Huntington's disease, and certain forms of epilepsy. 

"I wanted to focus more on the pharmacology. How does the CB1 as a receptor work?" said Laprairie.

Patients with Huntington's disease often lose up to half of their functioning cannabinoid receptors without ever knowing it. 

It's not easy to see that slow degradation happening, Laprairie said. But he said those receptors are essential to the brain, much like those wired for seratonin, or for dopamine.

"In animal studies we've seen the animals tend to be more anxious when the [CB1] receptors stopped. They tend to be somewhat spastic and their movements. So their movements can be a little bit less coordinated and they seem to exhibit some of the symptoms of depression."

Laprairie and his team are now trying to create drugs called positive alasteric modulators (PAMs) to boost, or turn up the volume in a patient's remaining CB1 receptors -- minus the intoxication.

In this episode, we also hear why communication -- and finding the right mentor -- is crucial for scientists with young families. Laprairie jokes that he had one child as he completed each degree -- and with three young children, his early career was hectic.

"There's just a lot of strain that puts on a family. Communication and scheduling became essential for survival," he said.

Crediting an 'amazing' supervisor with helping him through his master's and doctoral work, Laprairie describes biomedical research as 'a team sport'

"Her support of me and her acknowledgement and understanding made all the difference in the world. I would not have been successful without that support," Laprairie said.

Later in the episode, he also touches on work with Dr. Richard Huntsman using cannabidiol (CBD), which appeared to reduce the frequency of childhood epileptic seizures when administered orally. 

"Patients that were tested here at the university of Saskatchewan saw about a 50% drop in seizure activity," said Laprairie. 

"For someone who is experiencing a lot of seizures that are otherwise untreatable, that's huge."

His work studying the brain's response to drugs has been marked by paperwork, and bureaucratic hurdles with Health Canada. Even so, Laprairie says the pharmacology of hallucinogenic drugs including psilocybin mushrooms and LSD are intriguing.

"There's a lot of unanswered questions there as well," he said, noting some hallucinogens could serve as potential anti-depressants.