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posted by n1 on Wednesday November 12 2014, @03:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the snuff-ignorance-before-it-spreads dept.

Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), reports at AlterNet:

A new study identifying minor differences in the brain imaging of habitual marijuana consumers compared to non-users may be ideal for stimulating sensational headlines (e.g., "Regular pot smokers have shrunken brains, study says," Los Angeles Times, November 10), but tells us little in regard to whether pot poses actual health risks.

Specifically, an MRI scan revealed less gray matter in the orbital frontal cortex of pot-smoking subjects compared to those who had never used the drug. Researchers also identified increased connectivity between certain regions of the brain in regular marijuana users compared with non-users.

So precisely what do these findings tell us in regard to pot use and health? Not much. Since the study design is not longitudinal, investigators cannot determine whether these differences are caused by subject's cannabis use, whether these differences existed prior to subjects' ever trying cannabis, or whether these differences persist when users' cannabis consumption ceases.

Most importantly, investigators in this study failed to determine whether any of these differences are positively associated with any measurable adverse performance outcomes, such as cognitive performance or quality of life. It may be that these cannabis users are functioning in their daily lives in a manner that is indistinguishable from controls, in which case the imaging differences may hold little if any real-world significance.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday November 12 2014, @06:35PM

    by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday November 12 2014, @06:35PM (#115311)

    I suspect not, I'm pretty sure the whole brain operates pretty similarly on a cellular level, with the possible exception of the really ancient parts around the brainstem - they might not have kept up with recent advances in neuro-biology. ("We keep the critical circuits running on time-proven technology, maybe we'll consider upgrading in a few hundred million years once the new neuron designs have been thoroughly tested").

    Meanwhile we know that neuroplasticiy can be quite dramatic, allowing the brain to adapts to changing usage and even (with luck) severe localized damage. It seems far more likely that marijuana usage alters user's neurological behavior in a way that overstimulates certain tissues while understimulating others. To use your lung example, the whole lung functions pretty much the same way at the same time, so anything that mucks with it mucks with the whole thing. Muscles on the other hand function independently and locally - regularly using a drug that inclines users to swing through trees all day would result in your arm and shoulder muscles bulking up while those in your legs atrophy, despite having no direct effect on your muscles at all.

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