Your Brain on Drugs: MarijuanasteemCreated with Sketch.

in #marijuana7 years ago (edited)

maxresdefault.jpg

For centuries, humans have been using substances to alter their state of mind from caffeine, cigarettes and alcohol to more extreme drugs but as the most commonly used illicit drug in North America where does marijuana fit in and how exactly does it affect your brain?

First we need to understand how the brain functions. Your neurons are the cells that process information in the brain by releasing chemicals called neurotransmitters from the axon of one neuron to the dendrite of another. They change the electrical charge of the receiving neuron consequently exciting or inhibiting it. If exited, the signal’s passed on.

Though it sounds simple, these signals work together and the effect is quickly compounded into complex configurations within milliseconds flushing over the entire brain.

This is what happens every single time you think, breath or move. So what is going on inside your brain when you’re smoking marijuana?

Well unlike alcohol which contains molecules nothing like those in our body, cannabis contains molecules that resemble those produced in our very own brains! Cannabinoids.

Though naturally these cannabinoids circulate in much lower quantities compared to the large influx imposed by smoking. Specifically the chemical tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) resembles a natural transmitter called anandamide. These cannabinoids are specialized neurotransmitters released by neurons having just fired. Neurons temporarily become unresponsive after firing to prevent them from overreacting or being too dominant. This allows your brain to function in a calm and controlled manner. But cannabinoids interrupt this approach in some parts of the brain. Instead, they move the refractory period of neurons that are already active and cause your thoughts, imagination and perception to utterly magnify itself. This means once you begin your train of thought, it becomes the most significant and profound thing ever. You can’t see the big picture, or even recall your last epiphany because you’re caught up in the momentum of a particular idea and your neurons keep firing until a new idea takes hold and you go off on a new tangent.

These cannabinoids also affect the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in your brain often leading to a sense of euphoria, relaxation, pain modulation and general enhancement of an experience though sometimes causing anxiety.

Furthermore, there are cannabinoid receptors in areas controlling short term memory, learning, coordination, movement control and higher cognitive functions.

Got a burning question you want answered, ask it in the comments

Sort:  

Hi! I am a robot. I just upvoted you! I found similar content that readers might be interested in:
https://herb.co/2014/06/18/how-does-marijuana-affect-your-brain/

Sounds Like A Great Clinical Description of

the effects of synthetic THC.

Full Plant Cannabis

produces vastly differing effects, depending on the strain and the person. These effects range from extremely debilitating/inebriating, where indeed the thought expansion effect can take place, to the extremely functional.

Cannabis Improves Memory, Focus, Mood-Control,

anxiety control and more. Functional cannabis strains produce this effect and more strains are becoming available each year. As people become familiar with the real facts of cannabis, they become aware of how wrong and destructive prohibition is to children and society as a whole.

Fortunately, the World is Waking Up. ;)

More people should try waking up and having original thoughts, the world will benefit. ;)

Go Be Awesome!

keep up the awesome stuff

Hello & Cheers!! I'm a content detection and information bot. You are receiving this reply because a short link or links have been detected in your post/comment. The purpose of this message is to inform your readers and yourself about the use of and dangers of short links.

To the readers of the post: Short links are provided by url shortening services. The short links they provide can be useful in some cases. Generally their use is benign. But as with all useful tools there are dangers. Short links can be used to hide all sorts of things. Quite frequently they are used to hide referral links for instance. While not dangerous this can be deceptive. They can also be used to hide dangerous links such as links to phishing sites, sites loaded with malware, scam sites, etc. You should always be extremely cautious before clicking on one. If you don't know and trust the poster don't click. Even if you do you should still be cautious and wary of any site you are sent to. It's always better to visit the site directly and not through a short link.

To the author of the post: While short links may be useful on some sites they are not needed on steemit. You can use markdown to format your links such as this link to steemit. It's as simple as [steemit](https://steemit.com) Unlike short links this allows the reader to see where they are going by simply hovering over the link before they click on it.

This message was created by a bot. It is part of the ongoing fight against spam and phishing attacks on steemit. If you did not use short links in your post and feel you have received this message in error you can contact @fubar-bdhr on discord or @fubar.bdhr on steemit chat to report the issue.

I was always taught that marijuana kills brain cells. I never looked into it but I still believe that it does.

The "Study" which supposedly proves cannabis kills brain cells was horribly flawed. The monkeys had brain damage from oxygen deprivation and likely lived longer because of the cannabis.

THC and CBD are Part of a Small Group of

compounds responsible for neurogenesis, the generation of new brain tissue. So yeah, the study is about as wrong as you can get, around 100%. ;)