A new study published in the American journal with the highest impact factor in worldwide, Molecular Psychiatry, shows that consumers of cannabis are more prone to experiencing memories that are false.
The study was conducted by researchers from the Human Neuropsychopharmacology group in the Biomedical Research Institute of Hospital de Sant Pau and from Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, in collaboration with all the Brain Cognition and Plasticity group of the Bellvitge Institute for Biomedical Research (IDIBELL - University of Barcelona). Among the known effects of have this drug is the recollection issues it can cause. Persistent consumers reveal more problems than the general population in retaining new information and recollections that are regaining. The brand new study also shows the long-term use of cannabis causes distortions in memory, making it easier for imaginary or false recollections to appear.
On occasions, the brain can recall things that never occurred. Our memory is made up of malleable process that is created progressively and therefore is subject to distortions or false memories. These memory "mistakes" are seen more frequently in several neurological and psychiatric disorders, but can be observed in the healthy people, and become more common as we age. Some of the most typical false memories we have are of scenarios from our childhood which we believe to recall because the folks around us have explained them to us over and over again. Keeping an acceptable control over the "veracity" of our recollections is a complicated cognitive task which allows us to have our own awareness of reality and also shapes our behaviour, based on past experiences.
In the study published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, researchers from Sant Pau and Bellvitge compared a group of chronic consumers of cannabis to a healthy control group on learning a series of words while they worked. After a few minutes they were once more shown the original words, together with new words which were either semantically related or unrelated. All participants were requested to identify the words belonging to the original list. Cannabis consumers believed to have already seen the semantically related words that were new to a higher degree than participants in the control group. By using magnetic resonance imaging, researchers discovered that cannabis consumers revealed a lower activation in areas of the brain related to memory processes and to the general control of cognitive resources.
The study found recollection deficiencies despite the fact that participants had stopped have cannabis before participating in the study. Although they had not consumed the drug in a month, the more the patient had used cannabis throughout their life, the lower the degree of action in the hippocampus, essential to storing memories.
The outcomes demonstrate that cannabis consumers are somewhat more vulnerable to suffering memory distortions, even weeks after not have the drug. This suggests that cannabis has a protracted effect on the brain mechanisms which enable us to discern between fictional and real events. These recollection errors can cause difficulties in post traumatic stress disorder legal cases, for instance, due to the effects the testimonies of their casualties and witnesses can have. Nevertheless, from a clinical perspective, the results point to the fact that a continual use of cannabis could worsen issues with age-associated memory loss.
