I compiled a bunch of academic, scientific studies about the effects of terpenes.

I'm lucky to have the best medical cannabis budtenders in the whole entire world. 💓 Our budtenders here are fully certified pharmacists. I know not everyone has access to good medical care so I'm just passing along resources in case anyone else finds them helpful.

The Univeristy of Arizona has the most studies in the US I found and they have an entire Cannabis program. Their studies consistently show medicinal effects of terpenes.

From Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, University of Arizona: "Our work is showing that terpenes might have pain-relieving properties without themselves being cannabinoids." https://healthsciences.arizona.edu/news/blog/terpenes-cannabis-explained

"Our findings suggest that these Cannabis terpenes are multifunctional cannabimimetic ligands that provide conceptual support for the entourage effect hypothesis and could be used to enhance the therapeutic properties of cannabinoids." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8050080/

"We found that the terpenes geraniol, linalool, α-humulene, β-pinene, and β-caryophyllene had modest efficacy in relieving acute nociceptive tail flick pain [13]. We thus expanded from this work to test their efficacy in relieving mechanical allodynia in a model of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN)....Overall, our observations support the translational utility of terpenes as potential treatments for neuropathic pain, and have identified a novel A2AR-mediated mechanism of action in spinal cord" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10081257/

Other international universities have as similar conclusions:

National Institute of Psychiatry Ramon de la Fuente Muñiz (INPRFM), Mexico "Notably, as discussed in this article, numerous studies have demonstrated that terpenes and terpenoids possess a strong potential as alternative treatments for inflammatory diseases. Although not all the mechanisms of anti-inflammatory activity of terpenes have been described, it is known that these involve several molecular targets that include pro-inflammatory cytokines, transcription factors, autophagy machinery, ROS, membrane receptors, and other inflammatory mediators. Therefore, unlike some current drugs, terpenes can simultaneously act through different cell signaling pathways and exert a pleiotropic effect on inflammatory disorders; thus, terpenes could be more effective than existing medications https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8414653/"

From the College of Pharmacy and Medical Research Center, Chungbuk National University "Limonene, a common terpene found in medicinal plants (Leite et al., 2008), has a great potential for modulating the synthesis or changes in neurotransmitters such as dopamine (DA), serotonin (5-HT), γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glutamic acid (Glu), and some of their metabolites (Tujioka et al., 2007; Zhou et al., 2009)." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0944711321000167

From the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom "The main reported biological properties of β-myrcene—anxiolytic, antioxidant, anti-ageing, anti-inflammatory, analgesic properties—are discussed, with the mechanisms of activity. Here we also discuss recent data regarding the safety of β-myrcene. Overall, β-myrcene has shown promising health benefits in many animal studies." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8326332/

From the University of Wollongong, Australia "Overall, it appears that the importance of the terpene profile of plants to humans extends further than mere olfactory and gustatory delight. Rather, these compounds have the potential for use as treatments for serious chronic neurological and psychiatric illnesses." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8426550/

From MacEwan University, Edmonton, AB Canada study discusses the need for high terpene dosages of beta-caryophyllene and alpha-pinene https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9568608/

From Chiang Mai University, a study concluded that "the terpene profiles not only embody the characteristics of cannabis genotypes, but their entourage effect with cannabinoids could enhance their medicinal functionality." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7763918/

This is the infographic posted at my dispensary that summarizes the effects of most terps https://cannacon.org/15-terpenes-cannabis-explained/

Happy Toking! 😘