Marijuana Promotes Brain Cell Growth

[Elizabeth Jane]

Author: Alan Mozes

Date: 13th October, 2006

Source: Forbes.com

Copyright: © 2005 Forbes.com Inc. All Rights Reserved

 

 

 

Marijuana Compound Spurs Brain Cell Growth

...by Alan Mozes

HealthDay Reporter

 

THURSDAY, Oct. 13 (HealthDay News) -- When it comes to the controversy surrounding medical marijuana, an international team of researchers is busy stirring the pot by releasing findings that suggest the drug helps promote brain cell growth while treating mood disorders.

 

According to the study in rats, a super-potent synthetic version of the cannabinoid compound found in marijuana can reduce depression and anxiety when taken over an extended period of time.

 

This mood boost seems to be the result of the drug's ability to promote the growth of new brain cells, something no other addictive drug appears able to do, the researchers say.

 

The findings, which appear in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, remain preliminary, however.

 

"Our results were obtained from rats, and there's a big difference between rats and humans," said study co-author Dr. Xia Zhang, of the neuropsychiatry research unit in the department of psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. "So, I don't really don't know yet if our findings apply to humans. But our results indicate that the clinical use of marijuana could make people feel better by helping control anxiety and depression."

 

The new findings come on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June granting federal authorities the power to stop doctors from prescribing marijuana. That decision also bars individuals from cultivating the herb for medical purposes.

 

The decision overrides laws currently on the books in 11 states which had legalized the use of marijuana for patients receiving a doctor's approval. According to the ruling, the Supreme Court justices made their decision on the basis of interstate commerce regulations rather than on an evaluation of the pros and cons of medical marijuana use.

 

But does medical marijuana work? To help settle that question, Zhang's team focused on the potential of a synthetic laboratory-produced form of the cannabinoid compound naturally found in the marijuana plant.

 

Humans and other animals also naturally produce the compound, and are known to have cannabinoid receptors lying on the surface of cells in the nervous system and the immune system.

 

Prior research has shown that, when exposed to cannabinoids, these receptors can provoke an anti-inflammatory and anti-convulsive response. They can also instigate a range of psychotropic effects such as euphoria.

 

The current study focused on a particular formulation of synthetic cannabinoid known as HU210 -- a compound which Zhang described as the most powerful cannabinoid in the world.

 

The authors explored both the short-term and long-term effects of exposure to HU210 in rats.

 

To measure the drug's short-term response, they gave adult rats a single injection of HU210. To study the same drug's effect over the longer term, the researchers gave a separate group of adult rats twice-daily injections of the cannabinoid over a two-week period.

 

Autopsies revealed that by the end of the 10-day HU210 treatment regimen, new neurons had been generated and integrated into the circuitry of the hippocampus region of the rat's brains. This process, known as neurogenesis, was still in evidence a full month after treatment had been initiated.

 

Neurogenesis was not triggered in response to brain cells being killed through cannabinoid exposure, the researchers add. In fact, HU210 injections did not appear to prompt any loss of neurons in the hippocampus.

 

Cannabinoid use appeared to boost mood, as well: According to the scientists, behavioral tests suggest that long-term treatment reduced the rodent's anxiety- and depression-linked behaviors.

 

For example, one month post-treatment, treated rats deprived of food for 48 hours were quicker than similarly deprived, non-treated rats to begin eating food when it was finally offered to them in an unfamiliar environment.

 

The researchers believe treated rats may have been less anxious in the manner they handled this novel situation. They stress the results were not related to cannabinoids' appetite-stimulating effects, since the treated rats' eating behavior was similar to that of untreated rats when they were offered food in a familiar setting.

 

Treated rats also responded in a less anxious manner to swimming and climbing tests, and displayed shorter periods of immobility compared with untreated rats. The latter finding was interpreted to mean that HU210 had an antidepressant effect on rats receiving the cannabinoid over the longer term.

 

However, while long-term administration of higher doses worked to reduce anxiety and depression, lower doses did not appear to have the same effect, the researchers added.

 

Zhang and his associates credit cannabinoid-linked neurogenesis with the apparent mood shifts seen in the animals.

 

The hippocampus area of the brain where the neuronal growth occurred is key to the regulation of stress and other mood disorders, Zhang's team point out. This region is also important to the control of cognitive processes such as learning and memory.

 

Among the common addictive drugs, marijuana alone appears able to promote neurogenesis when used over time and in the right dosage, the researchers say. In contrast, prior research has demonstrated that chronic administration of cocaine, opiates, alcohol and nicotine inhibits brain cell growth.

 

"If our results can be confirmed in humans, we should anticipate the chronic use of marijuana as a medical treatment for anxiety and depression," Zhang said.

 

However, he cautioned that "this treatment is not the same as smoking marijuana. Whether smoking marijuana can produce the same effect, we just don't know."

 

Dr. Perry G. Fine, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of Utah School of Medicine Pain Research Center, said more than enough data has already been gathered to confirm medical marijuana's potential benefits.

 

"It's great that there's new science, but to me this is no longer an epiphany," he said. "It's just proving what's been long-suspected. We're behind the curve with the cannabinoids largely because of the stigma of marijuana going years and years back."

 

"I think most people with clinical expertise in the area of palliative medicine know that if patients had access to all the tools we currently have, we could certainly do a whole lot better to help people live with multiple chronic diseases," he added. "The social policies are way behind our technology, and that's where we need some catching up."

 

More information

 

For more on the medical marijuana debate, check out the Medical Marijuana ProCon.org.

 

I searched the forum and did not find that this news/research had been previously posted. It is especially interesting if read in conjunction with the fact that research into schizophrenia is politically motivated since as little as 1% of studies look for social causes. Changing society instead of controlling people just doesn't fit into the game plan of patriarchal tyranny masquerading as "freedom", no freedom other than the "freedom" of the ruling puritanical elite to rule and oppress. This cover-up in the "science" of psychiatry was revealed at a conference in mid-2006.

 

Here are the conference details at which this right-wing political perversion of science was challenged:

 

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/p...releases/abuse/

 

What do you think of this?

 

"Read and Hammersley argue that the weight of inertia, and resistance, on the part of the medical establishment and pharmaceutical industry, has suppressed and sidelined research into psychosocial causes, including deprivation and urban environments, while insisting on the bio-genetic nature of the illness; in 2003, for example, the US National Institute for Mental Health defined schizophrenia as 'a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disease'. The authors point out that, out of 33,648 studies conducted into the causes of schizophrenia between 1961 and 2000, less than one percent examined the impact of parental care."

 

SOURCE: http://www2.hero.ac.uk//uk/research/archiv...g_to_voices.cfm

 

 

_________________________________

Their drugs deny the psyche while our drugs are doors to open, the doors of perception and Heaven and Hell, as Aldous Huxley called them. So much for the pseudo-science of psychiatry! Free and unfettered research, (i.e. sincere enquiry not funded with the purpose of supporting right-wing political ends and for socio-political propaganda), into the psychic and social causes of mental illness would reveal the truth about a psick, manipulative, tyrannical "anti-society" and about the neurotic people who are in control of our universe of discourse. It would reveal the reasons behind the censorship of the truth. Those who do not fear the truth have no need of such lies and propaganda as are constantly propagated in the name of "protecting" us. The police are no more than the arms of tyranny masquerading as soldiers of virtue and morality, and yet represent nothing more civilised than the Catholic Church, the Puritans and the pharmaceutical guilds who waged a war on witches, upon the wise of an older matriarchal society, and who now wage a war on us. But it is their "war", not ours, and it is not an evenly matched battlefield, and the war is a process of extermination. Self-knowledge! Why is it so dangerous? What is the shadow that is in their souls from which they hide? Why have they feared us for so many centuries, for millennia? Therein lies the cause of this tyranny! Elizabeth Jane

_________________________________

 

 

P.S. Can anyone tell me where I can get canary grass seed of the sub-species Phalaris brachystachys? This species is a prohibited import - no other country is this bad! - so I can't get it from seed suppliers overseas. This grass is in Australia and is up to 3% DMT and so preferable to Phalaris aquatica, and even more preferable to Reed Canary grass Phalaris arundinacea, both easily available on the internet from Australia and overseas and in the environment. e-mail

 

* * * * *

... P.P.S. The irony is that it is so similar to common canary grass Phalaris canariensis which it closely resembles and which can be grown from canary seed from the supermarket, which, research has recently revealed, is a domesticated form of Phalaris brachystachys. I am growing canary grass in a pot - and it is very easy to grow - though there is no mention of it containing any alkaloids at all. Who knows??? At least it will help me to recognise its outlawed predecessor, if nothing else.

Edited October 16, 2008 by Oz

[mull]

Good post Elizabeth, welcome along.

 

 

"If our results can be confirmed in humans, we should anticipate the chronic use of marijuana as a medical treatment for anxiety and depression," Zhang said.

 

However, he cautioned that "this treatment is not the same as smoking marijuana. Whether smoking marijuana can produce the same effect, we just don't know."

 

 

Does Zhang want to know the answer, or, to sell hu210 and work for those that keep the patent to nature?

[kiloppo]

really great post, and a very interesting study.

 

It's good to see some research that hasn't gone through the propaganda machine finally coming out.

[freddie]

Great post. This bit is particularly interesting:

"Read and Hammersley argue that the weight of inertia, and resistance, on the part of the medical establishment and pharmaceutical industry, has suppressed and sidelined research into psychosocial causes, including deprivation and urban environments, while insisting on the bio-genetic nature of the illness; in 2003, for example, the US National Institute for Mental Health defined schizophrenia as 'a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disease'. The authors point out that, out of 33,648 studies conducted into the causes of schizophrenia between 1961 and 2000, less than one percent examined the impact of parental care."

Totally agree.