Zdroj: JoinTogether | 07. 01. 2010 |
Animal studies show that daily marijuana use could permanently alter serotonin
and norepinephrine levels in the brain, raising the risk of depression and
anxiety, according to researcher Gabriella Gobbi of McGill University.
The Canadian Press reported Dec. 17 that Gobbi studied the brain chemistry of
18 adolescent lab rats exposed daily to marijuana and found that they had
decreased levels of mood-controlling serotonin and higher levels of the stress
hormone norepinephrine.
Gobbi said that the effects were magnified because the adolescent brain is
still developing. "These permanent changes in the brain are also linked to
certain mental illnesses, like schizophrenia," she said. "And we showed that
even if we stopped the cannabis use at the end of adolescence, the changes were
still detectable in adulthood."
A future study will concentrate on adolescent marijuana use among humans.
The study was published in the journal Neurobiology of Disease.
