Video Transcription
Effects of cannabis on the teenage brain
During our teenage years, how we interact with the world changes. We seek out new interests and experiences, take more risks, and spend more time with our friends and less with our family. These behaviors have developed through evolution to make sure we push ourselves so that we learn to become independent from our parents. By putting ourselves in new and challenging situations, different parts of our brain learn to work together, forming brain circuits that can communicate with each other rapidly to help us respond in different ways. This ensures that our brain is wired in the right way during the teenage years, with strong and healthy brain circuits being critical to our future and how we get the most out of life.
Three of the most important circuits that are developing during this period are those involved in learning and memory, motivation, and mood. Learning and memory circuits control our ability to receive, store, and recall information. Our motivation circuit is supported by an inbuilt reward system that helps us to decide if something is important and whether we should do something to get it. Our mood is shaped by emotional circuits that interpret how we experience and react to different situations and interactions. Making sure these particular circuits wire in the right way during our teenage years is the brain’s own occupational health and safety team—the endocannabinoid system.
The endocannabinoid system is a complex and delicate brain system that helps to fine-tune communication within these circuits, ensuring the wiring is assembled correctly, damaged cells are repaired, and the right connections are strengthened for the future. When looking into the effect of cannabis on the brain, scientists found that we naturally produce a brain chemical called anandamide that is similar to cannabis. The concentration of anandamide is delicately calibrated for it to accomplish its critical role within the endocannabinoid system. This is why, if we add cannabis into the brain, it causes the endocannabinoid system to become flooded with cannabis chemicals. It’s a bit like dumping a bucket of salt on your chips instead of a pinch, or like stadium speakers being plugged into your iPod, constantly disrupting the endocannabinoid system.
Disrupting the endocannabinoid system with cannabis impacts how your brain develops, particularly how the mood, motivation, and learning and memory circuits get wired. Short-term memory loss is a common characteristic of long-term heavy cannabis use because, when you use cannabis, less information gets saved as memories. This is why it’s harder to learn and remember new information, which can lead to significant drops in school grades. Cannabis can reduce your ability to focus, pay attention, organize yourself, and make decisions—not just when you’re using cannabis, but for weeks afterward. Cannabis use can also lead to a loss of motivation. Heavy users can feel detached and disinterested in things they used to like, such as sports, hobbies, and catching up with friends. It can also lead to low self-confidence, which in turn affects your mood, making it more difficult to manage everyday stresses, worries, and frustrations. This can result in prolonged low mood, anxiety, and depression.
While these effects are commonly experienced by people who use cannabis regularly, new research suggests that these effects are worse and more permanent for people who start using cannabis while their brain is still developing. This is because the endocannabinoid system plays a central role in the development of your neural circuitry during the teenage years. The developing brain has a pretty good blueprint to work off, but our experiences and interactions with the outside world also help shape these neural circuits that we build on as adults.
Your teenage years are an adventure that sets you up for life. Enjoy the ride and look after your brain—it’s the only one you’ve got.
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