WASHINGTON — A brain abnormality that impacts memory has been noticed in young adults who were聽heavy pot smokers as teenagers.
础听聽finds that teens 16 to 17 years old who used cannabis聽daily for about three years have an abnormally shaped hippocampus as adults. 聽The hippocampus is the part of the brain responsible for long-term memory, according to .
The younger drug abuse starts, the more abnormal the brain聽appears.
The 97 study participants who were tested in their early 20s had quit smoking pot at least two years.聽They聽performed聽18 percent worse on long-term memory tests than young adults who had聽not聽abused cannabis as teenagers.
“It is possible that the abnormal brain structures reveal a pre-existing vulnerability to marijuana abuse,” study author Matthew Smith said in a news release.聽 Smith is an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
“But evidence that the longer the participants were abusing marijuana, the greater the differences in hippocampus shape suggests marijuana may be the cause,” Smith said.
The Northwestern researchers say the abnormality they observed involves memory-related structures in brains appearing to shrink and collapse inward which may suggest a聽decrease in neurons.
The study findings are published in the Journal聽Hippocampus.
海角社区app’s Kristi King contributed to this report.
