Study shows MARIJUANA increases BRAIN CELL GROWTH!
PEAK
By Juanita King, The Muse (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
ST. JOHN’S, Nfld — Supporters of marijuana may finally have an excuse to smoke weed every day. A recent study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation suggests that smoking pot can make the brain grow.
Though most drugs inhibit the growth of new brain cells, injections of a synthetic cannibinoid have had the opposite effect in mice in a study performed at the University of Saskatchewan. Research on how drugs affect the brain has been critical to addiction treatment, particularly research on the hippocampus.
The hippocampus is an area of the brain essential to memory formation. It is unusual because it grows new neurons over a person’s lifetime. Researchers believe these new cells help to improve memory and fight depression and mood disorders.
Many drugs -— heroin, cocaine, and the more common alcohol and nicotine — inhibit the growth of these new cells. It was thought that marijuana did the same thing, but this new research suggests otherwise.
Neuropsychiatrist Xia Zhang and a team of researchers study how marijuana-like drugs — known collectively as cannabinoids — act on the brain.
The team tested the effects of HU-210, a potent synthetic cannabinoid similar to a group of compounds found in marijuana. The synthetic version is about 100 times as powerful as THC, the high-inducing compound loved by recreational users.
The researchers found that rats treated with HU-210 on a regular basis showed neurogenesis — the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampus. A current hypothesis suggests depression may be triggered when the hippocampus grows insufficient numbers of new brain cells. If true, HU-210 could offer a treatment for such mood disorders by stimulating this growth.
Whether this is true for all cannabinoids remains unclear, as HU-210 is only one of many and the HU-210 in the study is highly purified.
“That does not mean that general use in healthy people is beneficial,” said Memorial psychology professor William McKim. “We need to learn if this happens in humans, whether this is useful in healthy people, and whether THC causes it as well.”
McKim warns that marijuana disrupts memory and cognition. “These effects can be long-lasting after heavy use,” he said. “This makes it difficult to succeed academically if you use it excessively.”
“Occasional light use probably does not have very serious consequences. [But] there is some evidence that marijuana smoke might cause cancer.”
Still, the positive aspects of marijuana are becoming more plentiful as further research is done. McKim says it’s not surprising that THC and compounds like it could have medicinal effects.
“Many have been identified,” he said. “It stimulates appetite in people with AIDS, it is an analgesic, and blocks nausea in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. And it treats the symptoms of glaucoma.”
The research group’s next studies will examine the more unpleasant side of the drug.
Posted by PIMPIN TURTLE at 1/14/2008 3:12 AM 
Categories: Science,Drugs and Alcohol,ALL THE BEST STUFF,Things you may not have heard of,Medical
Categories: Science,Drugs and Alcohol,ALL THE BEST STUFF,Things you may not have heard of,Medical
This is a very interesting study. I am interested in seeing where this goes after it gets into the human testing stage. Is it only HU-210 that promotes growth in the hippocampus or is THC in general? I understand that future testing is necessary to come to a conclusion in either direction and would like to know how everything turns out. Will HU-210 be addictive or will it be something someone can take and walk away from whenever these choose? What will be the side effects? I have so many questions related to this study.
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You pose some great questions. I also look forward to more research on this.
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This is a big lie. I work in a drug rehab and I know that if you smoke too often it has the contrary effect, it kills your brain cells, and that’s only logical, everything that is too much is damaging to you.
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I understand the logic behind moderation. Can you provide any sources that agree with what you're saying?
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People like you are the ones who are destroying this country with your fly-by-night recommendations. Stupid people enter rehab clinics. Thats why you think it kills brain cells. Smart people who have a decent amount of willpower deal with it on their own. Next time i want an opinion from a rehab nurse or aid, i'll just guess the answer myself and be better off.
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Look buddy, drug rehab's comment was obviously ignorant and uninformed, but yours is probably worse.
Believe it or not intelligence has nothing to do with the likelihood that a person suffers from addiction or mental health problems. So try think things through a little more next time!
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Your work is the lie. Most people in college smoke and go on to do just fine. Who the hell is addicted to weed? I get tired of it after a while. Pull your head out of the sand and stop listening to the propaganda. If research won't convince you and you'd rather believe the government, have fun living deluded.
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To Drug Rehab: Big lie? Well, that's how
you make your money, so don't force your
opinion on us since you do not even have
a research laboratory to measure brain
cells.Too much of anything will always b
off balance, well but not here, 100 X more potent....yet it improves...wow...
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To drug rehab: YOU SUCK !!!!!!!!!
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No matter how interesting this research is the fact is that marijuana slows down a persons motor skills. This was also proven when it was injected to lab rats. The key word is injects. What do we really know about the effects of smoking marijuana? People should stop trying to find ways to legalize drugs. We should focus on trying to get people off of drugs. A great way to start is to refer them to Narconon">http://www.samrathacks.com/2008/06/narconon-vista-bay.html">Narconon Vista Bay. Lets save our planet and the people on it.
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No matter how interesting this research is the fact is that marijuana slows down a persons motor skills. This was also proven when it was injected to lab rats. The key word is injects. What do we really know about the effects of smoking marijuana? People should stop trying to find ways to legalize drugs. We should focus on trying to get people off of drugs. A great way to start is to refer them to Narconon">http://www.samrathacks.com/2008/06/narconon-vista-bay.html">Narconon Vista Bay. Lets save our planet and the people on it.
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Narconon: Isn't that a Scientology organization?
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Great to know that marijuana does have positive properties if properly used. It does not surprise me considering that the native people have been using it for a very long time.
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Now that’s interesting. However, the study doesn’t reveal what impact it will have on human brain cells. Little knowledge is dangerous and therefore promoting marijuana as a brain enhancing drug can be fatal. Perhaps, poor Phelps had read your post…LOL
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Evidently the factual data from societies that have legalized drugs, and various other scientific experiments is inadequate for the majority of the sheeple that blindly follow consensus policies and in so doing are themselves responsible for the current state of this planet! Because they are unable to think for themselves and moderate their own behaviors while personally accepting responsibility for the associated outcome. Instead they judge for all humans what is right and wrong in gods name of course and require others to moderate individual behavior, which directly leads to behavioral disorders and problems of self medicating due to the imbalanced existence of modern society. What we are is far more than this biologic entity, but society does not live truth and exist in harmony with earth, accordingly many will perish very soon now. For those that suffer from judgment it will be a release, for those that judge it will be time for judgment. There can be no greater case for drug legalization than the human atrocities that are occurring in Mexico right now! Certainly the war in Afghanistan has nothing to due with opium even though upon US occupation of that country, the availability of heroin in the US increased, just as with cocaine and Central and South America. Certainly any government wouldn't have anything to do with that. Perhaps the war on drugs is not lucrative, with billions spent every year and of course the pharmaceutical industry have nothing to do with it. So to All of you who do not live by the creed of harm none and do what you will. Have another blue pill and STFU! Soon you unaware and unbelieving will perish by the millions and good riddance to be certain! Or have a red pill and remove the blinders from your eyes. And while you are at it, before you so arrogantly think that you know so much about drugs, go and watch the movie "American Drug War The Last White Hope". And then ST
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Good to see research is really picking up speed on marijuana now, this is yet more proof that marijuana has
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Good to see research is really picking up speed on marijuana now, this is yet more proof that marijuana has medicinal properties and could be useful for in drug treatment centers for the suffers of chronic pain.
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this is a very interesting study and the the only thing i have to say to tom bemky and narcanon is shut the hell up tom and to narca non your overrated programs dont do a damn thing to truly help any body i currently go to iop groups and if the group leader new that the only time i really feel like smokin a bowl is right after group i would never complete i can sit in a room with 20 people smoking pot and not take one hit and ive been a heavy smoker since i was 13 years old so in my opinion the government can take all these stupid counselor's and their over rated programs and shove them up there ass
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It is SO interesting to me that all the people that are SO concerned about our health, about the alledged (falsely) deleterious effects of plants like cannabis, don't seem the LEAST concerned about about the PROVEN disastrous effects of substances such as ASPARTAME which is consumed on a truly frightening level...or FLUORIDE which is in our water supply with nasty effects too numerous to discuss here. It was first used by the Nazis and in the Soviet Gulags to make the prisoners DOCILE!!! It suppresses Thyroid Function. They also aren't the least bit concerned about the Chemical SPRAY OPERATIONS over our skys - known as CHEMTRAILS, which has been confirmed by many pilots, doctors, atmospheric scientists, weather researchers, etc. This is a NATIONAL SCANDAL and constitutes International War Crimes and Human Rights Abuses. Indeed, as Gerald Celente has said, the SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION has begun, and for my taste, not a moment Too Soon. Wake UP everyone - Look Up - Open Your Eyes.Add to this the Vaccine FRAUD, which is not really JUNK SCIENCE, it is a campaign to Destroy the Health of Americans, and ultimately a strategy for Global DePopulation. If all this isn't enought to Fuel a Revolution, and to Storm the Bastille, I don't know what is.
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