THC can affect how your brain hemispheres communicate with each other.
The act of smoking itself is not considered to be particularly healthy. Smoking can lead to any number of deadly disease. But when it comes to smoking recreational drugs, the stakes become even higher. A joint operation between two esteemed universities from the United Kingdom and Italy found out that too much pot can wipe out your brain.
Leaving the colloquialism behind us for a bit, it would seem that researchers found out that inhaling vapors derived from burning strong cannabinoid substances can alter a significant part of your brain. Products that go around the market under names like “skunk” can significant alter the brain’s chemistry. It was even proven that long-term consumers have even exhibited psychotic episodes and this isn’t even the beginning of cannabis’s side effects.
The study was publish in a psychological journal. Its aim was to study the effects of high potency recreational drugs on the brain’s internal structure. The reason why today’s recreational substances are so potent is because they contain a higher dose of THC. Moreover, it would seem that the balance of power has shifted in the last couple of decades. Health specialists that have examined the new substance more closely have discovered that these contain a higher dose of THC than they did a couple of years ago.
The conclusion of the study was that too much pot can wipe out your brain, and that cannabis and its derivatives aim directly for the brain. Between the brain hemispheres is a specialized brain formation called corpus calosum. According to the scientists, this cerebral formation contains the largest amount of white matter than any other brain region. These white matter formation has a lot of nerve cells that are capable of connecting different brain structures. Even more than this, the white matter cells assures that the two hemisphere are permanently in touch with each other.
As well as containing a great deal of communication cells, the corpus calosum is known to contain a large number of THC receptors. Consuming a large quantity of potent recreational drugs can alter the structure of these white matter formations, thus, inducing severe neurological symptoms such as psychosis.
In order to see if their results are consistent, the team of researchers used two study groups. One consisted of 56 patients that exhibited symptoms consistent with psychosis and another 43 patients that were in perfect health. All of the patients that have been submitted to these tests were scanned using an MRI’s special function called Diffusion Tensor Imaging.
The scans were consistent with their initial findings, thus confirming that too much pot can wipe out your brain. Moreover, the specialist stressed out that it necessary to introduce new policy that should address the high potency drug abuse.
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