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Mars Base

Casual marijuana use linked to brain abnormalities in students - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...inked-brain-abnormalities.html

scibyte127 marijuana

shared by Mars Base on 19 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Young adults who used marijuana only recreationally showed significant abnormalities in two key brain regions that are important in emotion and motivation
  • This is the first study to show casual use of marijuana is related to major brain changes
  • the degree of brain abnormalities in these regions is directly related to the number of joints a person smoked per week
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • The more joints a person smoked, the more abnormal the shape, volume and density of the brain regions
  • Some of these people only used marijuana to get high once or twice a week
  • think a little recreational use shouldn't cause a problem
  • data directly says this is not the case
  • Scientists examined the nucleus accumbens and the amygdala—key regions for emotion and motivation, and associated with addiction—in the brains of casual marijuana users and non-users
  • chers analyzed three measures: volume, shape and density of grey matter
  • to obtain a comprehensive view of how each region was affected.
  • Both these regions in recreational pot users were abnormally altered for at least two of these structural measures
  • The degree of those alterations was directly related to how much marijuana the subjects used
  • Through different methods of neuroimaging, scientists examined the brains of young adults
  • ages 18 to 25, from Boston-area colleges; 20 who smoked marijuana and 20 who didn't. Each group had nine males and 11 females
  • The users underwent a psychiatric interview to confirm they were not dependent on marijuana
  • The changes in brain structures indicate the marijuana users' brains are adapting to low-level exposure to marijuana
  • The study results fit with animal studies that show when rats are given tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) their brains rewire and form many new connections. THC is the mind-altering ingredient found in marijuana
  • think when people are in the process of becoming addicted, their brains form these new connections
  • In animals, these new connections indicate the brain is adapting to the unnatural level of reward and stimulation from marijuana. These connections make other natural rewards less satisfying
  • The brain changes suggest that structural changes to the brain are an important early result of casual drug use
  • researchers did not know the THC content of the marijuana, which can range from 5 to 9 percent or even higher
  • The THC content is much higher today than the marijuana during the 1960s and 1970s, which was often about 1 to 3 percent
Mars Base

Study: Adolescent marijuana use leaves lasting mental deficits - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...scent-pot-mental-deficits.html

scibyte61

shared by Mars Base on 29 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • The persistent, dependent use of marijuana before age 18 has been shown to cause lasting harm to a person's intelligence, attention and memory, according to an international research team.
  • a long-range study cohort of more than 1,000
  • psychologist who was not involved in the research, said this study is among the first to distinguish between cognitive problems the person might have had before taking up marijuana, and those that were apparently caused by the drug
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  • The study has followed a group of 1,037 children
  • from birth to age 38
  • At age 38, all of the study participants were given a battery of psychological tests to assess memory, processing speed, reasoning and visual processing
  • Friends and relatives routinely interviewed as part of the study were more likely to report that the persistent cannabis users had attention and memory problems such as losing focus and forgetting to do tasks.
Mars Base

Israelis develop 'cannabis without the high' - 0 views

phys.org/...05-israelis-cannabis-high.html

scibyte49 cannabix marijuana

shared by Mars Base on 30 May 12 - No Cached
  • Israeli scientists have cultivated a cannabis plant that doesn't get people stoned in a development that may help those smoking marijuana for medical purposes
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