A new study has found that even a little bit of marijuana is enough to change a teenager’s brain.
Researchers in a new study that was published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, looked at the brains of 46 14-year-old girls and boys from Ireland, England, France and Germany.
They found that teenagers who reported using recreational marijuana one time or even two times had displayed increased volume on MRI images in numerous brain regions involved in emotion-related processing, learning and forming memories.
“Most people would likely assume that one or two uses (joints) would have no impact, so we were curious to study this — and especially to investigate if first uses may actually produce brain changes that affect future behavior like subsequent use,” said Hugh Garavan, lead author of the study to NBC News. Garavan is also a professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont School of Medicine.
“At the age at which we studied these kids (age 14), cortical regions are going through a process of thinning,” he added. “So, one possibility is that the cannabis use has disrupted this pruning process, resulting in larger volumes (i.e., a disruption of typical maturation) in the cannabis users. Another possibility is that the cannabis use has led to a growth in neurons and in the connections between them.”
