Cannabis use during teens may alter brain development

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An international study of 1,598 brain scans from 799 people, aged an average of 14.4 years for the first scan and followed up five years later, has found that cannabis use during adolescence was associated with abnormal brain development, leading to thinner cortices - the brain's outermost layers which are made up mainly of grey matter - in the prefrontal regions of the brain. And the more cannabis teens used, the thinner their cortices were, the scientists say, suggesting it is cannabis that is causing the changes seen. The areas in question are thought to be rich in cannabinoid receptors, they say, which probably explains why cannabis appears to have affected their development.

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From: JAMA

Association of Cannabis Use During Adolescence With Neurodevelopment

What The Study Did: Researchers examined to what extent cannabis use is associated with thickness in brain areas measured by magnetic resonance imaging in a study of adolescents.

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conference:
JAMA Psychiatry
Research:Paper
Organisation/s: University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine, USA
Funder: This work received support from the following sources: the European Union-funded FP6 Integrated Project IMAGEN (Reinforcement-related behaviour in normal brain function and psychopathology) (LSHM-CT-2007-037286), the Horizon 2020-funded ERC Advanced Grant STRATIFY (brain network based stratification of reinforcement-related disorders) (695313), Human Brain Project (HBP SGA 2, 785907, and HBP SGA 3, 945539), the Medical Research Council Grant “c-VEDA” (Consortium on Vulnerability to Externalizing Disorders and Addictions) (MR/ N000390/1), the NIH (R01DA049238, A decentralized macro and micro gene-by-environment interaction analysis of substance use behavior and its brain biomarkers), the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley National Health Service Foundation Trust and King’s College London, the Bundesministeriumfür Bildung und Forschung (BMBF grants 01GS08152; 01EV0711; Forschungsnetz AERIAL 01EE1406A, 01EE1406B; Forschungsnetz IMAC-Mind 01GL1745B), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG grants SM 80/7-2, SFB 940, TRR 265, NE 1383/14-1), the Medical Research Foundation and Medical Research Council (grants MR/R00465X/1 and MR/S020306/ 1), and the NIH-funded ENIGMA (grants 5U54EB020403-05 and 1R56AG058854-01). Further support was provided by grants from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-12-SAMA-0004, AAPG2019 – GeBra), the Eranet Neuron (AF12-NEUR0008-01–WM2NA; and ANR-18-NEUR00002-01–ADORe), the Fondation de France (00081242), the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (DPA20140629802), the Mission Interministérielle de Lutte-contre-les-Drogues-et-les-Conduites-Addictives (MILDECA), the Assistance-Publique-Hôpitaux-de-Paris and INSERM (interface grant), Paris Sud University IDEX 2012, the Fondation de l’Avenir (grant AP-RM-17-013), the Fédération pour la Recherche sur le Cerveau, the NIH, Science Foundation Ireland (16/ERCD/3797), NIMH (Axon, Testosterone and Mental Health during Adolescence; R01 MH085772-01A1), and by NIH Consortium grant U54 EB020403, supported by a cross-NIH alliance that funds Big Data to Knowledge Centres of Excellence. ImagenPathways “Understanding the Interplay between Cultural, Biological and Subjective Factors in Drug Use Pathways” is a collaborative project supported by the European Research Area Network on Illicit Drugs (ERANID). This study is based on independent research commissioned and funded in England by the NIHR Policy Research Programme (project ref. PR-ST-0416-10001). Dr Albaugh is supported by grant K08 MH121654-01A1 from NIMH and a NARSAD Young Investigator Grant from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.
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