Marijuana Disrupts the Body's Internal Clock

The circadian rhythm is without a doubt the main element influencing the way humans lead their lives. Everything in the human body, from the desire to eat to the time when more proteins are created, and when intestinal activity drops is controlled through this rhythm, which gives us a sense of time. A new research shows that marijuana affects this routine, which may be one of the main reasons why drug users oftentimes report experiencing time warps, in which seconds appear to pass by either slower or faster than usual, ScienceNow reports.

People consume marijuana and hashish because of their active ingredients, a class of compounds known as cannabinoids. The most important of this is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), whose concentration dictates the strength and type of “high” each brand of marijuana is renowned for. In the new investigation, an international group of scientists led by experts at the Yale University determined that cannabinoids can easily disrupt the circadian rhythm. Any changes in the body's internal clock are reflected in altered perceptions of time for users.

Details of the new investigation appear in this week's online issue of the esteemed scientific Journal of Neuroscience. The new work is very important from a scientific standpoint, even if popular wisdom has been arguing that drugs alter perception of time for many years. In lab experiments, addictive substances were only found to influence the brain's pleasure centers, and so discovering a clear correlation with the circadian rhythm is a major finding; one that could open up an entirely new field of research, with far-reaching implications.

The internal clock is reset everyday with the help of light. Researchers have determined that photons act on a region of the human brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which plays a crucial role in keeping the circadian rhythm running. But nerve cells located in the SCN were found to have receptors that allow them to bind cannabinoids, and so the Yale team looked at how these structures worked. The group, led by circadian biologist Anthony van den Pol, learned that nerve cells fire up to 50 percent more frequently when bound to the chemicals in marijuana.