Cannabidiol has the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier where it can reduce hyperexcitability, inflammation, pain perception, motor difficulties, and mood and behavioral disturbances.^1,3 However, several challenges remain:

• Most of the data on cannabidiol’s mechanism of action are derived from preclinical models that do not account for genetic, metabolic, or other physiologic variations occurring within a patient population.⁴
• Clinical trials conducted in most therapeutic areas included a limited range of demographic factors, which could influence cannabidiol safety and pharmacokinetics in individual patients.³
• There is a lack of standardized dosing guidelines, studies on the therapeutic dose range, and cannabidiol formulation guidance needed to establish optimal treatment protocols.^3,5
• The development of standardized cannabidiol formulations for specific neurologic conditions is needed.³

All this being said, there are planned or completed studies in epilepsy that may help better inform the potential for drug-drug interactions with antiseizure medications (NCT02607891, NCT02564952) and characterize the population pharmacokinetics of cannabidiol (NCT03196466).