Marijuana Impedes Brain Development

The use of marijuana in the Western world has been a major cause of concern for decades on end, especially since the 1970s, when it really skyrocketed, most importantly among teens. Now, occasional use is reported by a large segment of the population in countries such as the US, the UK, Germany, France, and others. Researchers have recently linked excessive use of cannabis with severe conditions of the brain, and have determined that the drug affects mostly young people.

According to the research conducted by investigators at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in the US and led by Manzar Ashtari, pot affects areas of the brain involved in the organ's development, and can have serious repercussions on memory, attention, decision-making, language and executive functioning skill centers. This is a very long list of issues to be treated lightly, and the researchers say that people should really learn when to lay off the weed, even if just for a little while.

"Studies of normal brain development reveal critical areas of the brain that develop during late adolescence, and our study shows that heavy cannabis use is associated with damage in those brain regions," Ashtari explains. "The abnormal patterns of water diffusion that we found among the young men with histories of marijuana use suggest damage or an arrest in development of the myelin sheath that surrounds brain cells," he adds.

"Our results suggest that early-onset substance use may alter the development of white matter circuits, especially those connections among the frontal, parietal and temporal regions of the brain. Abnormal white matter development could slow information transfer in the brain and affect cognitive functions," the researcher points out.

He concludes that "Further research should be done to investigate the relation between repeated marijuana use and white matter development. However, our work reinforces the idea that the adolescent brain may be especially vulnerable to risky behaviors such as substance abuse, because of crucial neural development that occurs during those years."