Cannabis Fun Club

Marijuana deafens the orchestra in the brain

Imagine an orchestra where all the musicians are deafened and blinded. Each musician can still perform their part, but the listeners are unlikely to enjoy such music. The reason for this is the temporary absence of any feedback, coordination, and synchronization in the group. And scientists believe that something similar happens in the human brain under the influence of marijuana.

Neurologist David Robbe and his colleagues from Rutgers University tried to figure out why marijuana causes temporary problems with memory and learning abilities.

To this end, they conducted experiments on rats that were given the drug's active component, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), in a dose proportional to the average amount smoked by humans. The researchers then recorded the activity of one of the rodents' brain regions.

Brain cells in the hippocampus, known as the "memory center of the brain," often synchronize their electrical activity to create a current of about 1 millivolt. In this way, the cells are able to "send a powerful message within the brain," the scientists say.

However, the dose of THC, as it turned out, brought chaos into the "game" of this well-coordinated "orchestra": the nerve impulses emitted by the cells became disordered, the total output voltage decreased by about 50%, and the rats under the influence of THC made many more mistakes when passing the maze. However, after a few hours the effect of THC "softened".

David Robb said this is the first detailed study of the effects of tetrahydrocannabinol on animal memory cells. He also added that the findings help explain why people high on marijuana sometimes lose their train of thought mid-sentence, forgetting what they were saying.

The results of the study will be published in the December issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience.

By the way, we previously reported that marijuana does not cause permanent brain damage, but it does harm blood flow, prolong time, increase the risk of death in a car accident, can prevent epilepsy, cause mental disorders, and open the door to heroin in rats.

Source: New Scientist