“Our study enabled us to highlight several areas of cognition impaired by cannabis use, including problems concentrating and difficulties remembering and learning, which may have a considerable impact on users’ daily lives,” said co-author Dr. Alexandre Dumais, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Montreal.
“Cannabis use in youth may consequently lead to reduced educational attainment, and, in adults, to poor work performance and dangerous driving. These consequences may be worse in regular and heavy users,” Dumais said.
Weed’s impact on the brain can be particularly detrimental to cognitive development for youth, whose brains are still developing, said Dr. Megan Moreno, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, who was not involved in the study.
“This study provides strong evidence for negative cognitive effects of cannabis use, and should be taken as critical evidence to prioritise the prevention of cannabis use in youth,” Moreno said. “And contrary to the time of Cheech and Chong, we now know that the brain continues to develop through age 25.
“Parents should be aware that adolescents using cannabis are at risk for damage to their most important organ, their brain.”
According to the report by CNN, the review looked at studies on over 43,000 people and found a negative impact of tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, the main psychoactive compound in cannabis, on the brain’s higher levels of thinking. Those executive functions include the ability to make decisions, remember important data, plan, organise and solve problems, as well as control emotions and behavior.
“Research has revealed that THC is a fat-soluble compound that may be stored in body fat and, thus, gradually released into the bloodstream for months,” Dumais said, adding that high-quality research is needed to establish the long-term impact of that exposure.
“Thus far, the most consistent alterations produced by cannabis use, mostly its chronic use, during youth have been observed in the prefrontal cortex,” Dumais said. “Such alterations may potentially lead to a long-term disruption of cognitive and executive functions.”
In addition, some studies have shown that “early and frequent cannabis use in adolescence predicts poor cognition in adulthood,” he added.
While science sorts this out, “preventive and interventional measures to educate youths on cannabis use and discourage them from using the substance in a chronic manner should be considered … since youths remain particularly susceptible to the effects of cannabis,” Dumais said.
Source: HealthWise
