A brand new study published in the American journal with the maximum impact factor in global, Molecular Psychiatry, reveals that consumers of cannabis are more prone to experiencing memories that are false.
The study was conducted by researchers from the Human Neuropsychopharmacology group at the Biomedical Research Institute of Hospital de Sant Pau and from Universitat Autonoma de post traumatic stress Barcelona, in collaboration with the Brain Cognition and Plasticity group of the Bellvitge Institute for Biomedical Research (IDIBELL - University of Barcelona). One of the known effects of consuming this drug is the recollection problems it can cause. Persistent consumers reveal more problems than the general citizenry in recollections that are recovering and retaining new info. The brand new study also shows the continual use of cannabis causes distortions in memory, making it simpler for false or fanciful recollections to appear.
On occasions, the brain can recall things which never happened. Our recollection consists of a malleable procedure which is created progressively and hence is subject to distortions or even false memories. These memory "mistakes" are seen more often in several neurological and psychiatric illnesses, but may also be detected in the healthy people, and become more common as we age. One of the very common false memories we have are from our youth which we believe to remember as the folks around us have clarified them to us over and over again of scenarios. Keeping an adequate control over the "veracity" of our memories is a complicated cognitive task which enables us to have our own awareness of reality as well as shapes our behaviour, based on previous encounters.
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 couple of minutes they were once again 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 initial list. Cannabis consumers believed to have seen the new words that were associated that were semantically to a degree that was higher than participants in the control group. Researchers discovered that cannabis consumers showed a lower activation in areas of the brain associated with memory processes and to the overall control of cognitive resources, by using magnetic resonance imaging.
The study found recollection deficiencies regardless of the fact that participants had stopped consuming cannabis before participating in the analysis. Although they had not have the drug in a month, the more the patient had used cannabis throughout their life, the lower the amount of action in the hippocampus, vital to keeping memories.
The results show that cannabis consumers are more vulnerable to enduring memory distortions, even weeks after not consuming the drug. This implies that cannabis has a protracted effect on the brain mechanisms which allow us to discern between fantastic and actual events. These recollection mistakes can cause issues in legal cases, for example, due to the effects the testimonies of witnesses and their casualties can have. Nevertheless, from a clinical viewpoint, the results point to the truth that a long-term utilization of cannabis could worsen issues with age-related memory loss.
