Given that ganja is themost commonly used recreational drugafter alcohol and tobacco plant , it is no surprisal that scientists are knifelike to investigate how it feign our bodies , in particular the judgement . Much research has focused on whether it could have animpact on our retentivity , and the general consensus is that it can .
Now , lending further financial backing to this opinion , a new investigation has found that cannabis user are more prone to false memories . Additionally , after glance over participant ’ brains , they found that great deal smoker also showed reduced activity in domain involved in memory processing , further suggesting the drug can compromise store . The work has been published inMolecular Psychiatry .
We all know that forgetting is frustratingly unglamorous , but did you experience that our brain can also do the opposite , adding in memory that never really took place ? These incorrect recollections are calledfalse memories , and they can vary from minor fabrications , like believing you left your shoes by the front doorway , tomajor fallacy such as believe you were abused during puerility . These fake or neutered memory board are the result of the fact that memory formation is aprogressive , malleable process that is therefore capable to torture .
Although these are actually fairly common , especially of puerility consequence as citizenry often repeatedly describe them in slightly unlike ways , they are observedmore frequentlyin sure neurologic or psychiatric disorderliness . And given the fact that somestudieshave show that cannabis use is associated with alteration in the region of our brain that is involve in memory constitution , the hippocampus , scientists inquire whether delusive memories may also be more common in cannabis users .
To investigate this further , research worker from theUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelonaand the Bellvitge Institute for Biomedical Research recruit 16 heavy cannabis drug user , set as using it daily for at least two geezerhood , and matched them with a control condition mathematical group who had used the drug less than 50 time in their sprightliness and were free of psychiatric and neurological condition . They then subjected the participants to a retentivity test in which player were asked to learn a serial of words . After a few minutes , the volunteers were presented with the words again , but the researcher had also added in extras , some of which were related in import , whereas others were completely unrelated . Participants were then ask to recall which give-and-take were on the original list .
The squad find that , compare with the controls , cannabis users were much more potential to incorrectly key young , related words as ones that had appeared on the original list , suggest that they have a greater susceptibleness to false memories . what is more , MRI brain scans revealed that cannabis users had thin bodily process in area screw to be postulate in memory processing , aid and functioning monitoring . Interestingly , the participant had actually abstained from smoking ganja for one month before the study start , suggesting a long - lasting compromise of both memory and the control mechanisms involved in realness monitoring , the researchers write .
Although the study was small , it does impart to the growing dead body of evidence that smoke cannabis could be affecting our memory . However , the investigation should be followed up with a large number of participant , and possibly also occasional users , to make the findings more watertight .
