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Home > News Archive > 2010 > marijuana can offset, Alcohol-Induced Cognitive Impairment among Teens
21. October 2010-San Diego, CA, United States
San Diego, CA:Connections in cannabis can offset some of the negative effects of alcohol on the adolescent brain, according to the clinical trial data published online by The Journal of Studies on alcohol and drugs.
Investigators at the University of California in San Diego assessed Cognitive performance of 130 teenagers (65 with the history of heavy marijuana use and 65 does not use marijuana controls), ranging in age from 15.7 to 19.1 years. Authors reported that the use of marijuana seemed to moderate the negative effects of alcohol on the verbal learning and memory.
Researchers determined, "regression models revealed larger alcohol hangover symptoms predicted worse verbal learning and memory scores for non-marijuana users, but alcohol hangover symptoms were not connected with the performance among marijuana users."
They concluded: "results confirm earlier studies linking adolescent heavy drinking for reduced their verbal learning and memory performance. However, this relationship is not seen in young people with similar levels of alcohol involvement, who is also heavy users of marijuana."
A previous study published in the 2009 reported that binge drinkers, who also used cannabis experienced significantly less white matter damage in the brain when compared with topics that are consumed alcohol alone.
"Binge drinkers, who is also using marijuana does not show as consistent a divergence from non-users, as did the Group binge drink only," concluded investigators. "[It is] impossible to marijuana may have some of the neuroprotective properties in mitigating alcohol-related oxidative stress or excitotoxic cell death. "
Commenting on the results, NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano, said, "alcohol and cannabis has apparently contrasting effects on the human brain," he said. "Ethanol is clearly toxic to healthy cells and developing countries, while moderate doses of cannabinoids seem to be relatively non-toxic and possibly even neuroprotective ".
For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: paul@norml.org.fuld text in the "Learning and memory performances in adolescent users of alcohol and marijuana: interactive effects" appears in The Journal of Studies on alcohol and drugs.
Updated: Jan 21, 2010
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