The cannabis plant contains over 100 different cannabinoids, each interacting with the human brain in a specific way. Researchers are increasingly focusing on the key role dopamine plays in those interactions.<\/p>\n
This is not surprising, as dopamine is critical to the brain\u2019s \u201creward system,\u201d which has a part in creating motivation by \u201crewarding\u201d us with a euphoric kick \u2014 or, in its negative role, denying us that kick. This, in turn, makes dopamine crucial to understanding addiction and other behavior patterns identified as pathological, such as depression.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ongoing research into cannabis and dopamine may shed light on the recent string of\u00a0much-hyped claims<\/a>\u00a0linking cannabis use to \u201cpsychosis and schizophrenia\u201d \u2014 and what the actual risks, and potential benefits, really are.<\/p>\n The evidence for a cannabinoid-dopamine link has been mounting for some time. What exactly the link is, and what it means for long-term users, is not yet clear.<\/p>\n A 2016 British study on the website of the\u00a0National Center for Biotechnology Information<\/a>\u00a0found that \u201cthe available evidence indicates that THC exposure produces complex, diverse and potentially long-term effects on the dopamine system, including increased nerve firing and dopamine release in response to acute THC and dopaminergic blunting associated with long-term use.\u201d<\/p>\n This suggests an immediate buzz from \u201cincreased nerve firing,\u201d but diminishing returns as dopamine production is \u201cblunted\u201d (no pun intended, we may presume). This is a pattern that may seem familiar to many long-term users.<\/p>\n A paper entitled \u201cA Brain on Cannabinoids: The Role of Dopamine Release in Reward Seeking,\u201d published in 2012 by\u00a0Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine<\/a>, reviewed several recent studies to postulate that problems with dopamine release could be the cause for \u201ccannabis-withdrawal syndrome.\u201d<\/p>\n It stated that quitting pot can cause \u201canxiety\/nervousness, decreased appetite\/weight loss, restlessness, sleep difficulties including strange dreams, chills, depressed mood, stomach pain\/physical discomfort, shakiness, and sweating.\u201d This all may seem rather overstated, but it is plausible that cannabis creates its craving by monkeying with the dopamine-regulated reward system.\u00a0\u201cIt is likely,\u201d the paper concluded, \u201cthat these withdrawal symptoms contribute to cannabis dependence through negative reinforcement processes.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA<\/a>), THC\u2019s effects on mood are determined by two types of neurons: GABA neurons and glutamatergic (glutamate-releasing) neurons.<\/p>\n GABA cells (for gamma-aminobutyric acid, the type of neurotransmitter these cells pick up) block the release of dopamine in order to keep you more stable, but THC can inhibit the release of GABA neurons. When the GABA neurons are inhibited, you get that pleasant dopamine rush. When the glutamatergic cells are inhibited, your brain is deprived of glutamate \u2014 which, akin to dopamine, is associated with pleasure, and closely interacts with it.<\/p>\n This dual effect may explain why some people enjoy cannabis and others do not: \u201cWhether the drug is experienced as rewarding or aversive depends in large part on which of the two neuron types is inhibited more,\u201d the NIDA wrote. And this can vary from organism to organism. \u201cAs a result, when a person is exposed to THC, the experience can be rewarding, aversive, or neutral.\u201d<\/p>\n Recent research has looked to cannabinoids as possible treatments for psychiatric disorders \u2014 and like most such treatments, this has to do with the impact on how dopamine is produced and transmitted in the brain.<\/p>\n Traditional \u201cantipsychotics\u201d appear to function by controlling the release of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, noradrenaline, acetylcholine and serotonin. An August article in\u00a0Medical Life Sciences News<\/a>\u00a0states, after reviewing six peer-reviewed studies: \u201cThe dopamine hypothesis, which has dominated psychosis treatment to date, postulates that an excess of dopamine in the brain causes psychotic symptoms.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Antipsychotic medications widely in use today bind to dopamine receptors, thus reducing dopamine production. But for those people who do not respond to these traditional pharmaceuticals, cannabinoids are being explored as an alternative treatment.<\/p>\n CBD is particularly looked to as a possible \u201cnew class of treatment for psychosis.\u201d Citing recent studies, the Medical Life Sciences report finds: \u201cWhen the effects of CBD as an adjunct to conventional antipsychotic medication are examined, modest improvements are found on cognition and the impact of patients\u2019 illness on their quality of life and global functioning.\u201d<\/p>\n But if CBD is chilling your dopamine out, THC might be flooding your neuro-receptors with the stuff \u2014 at least initially. That\u2019s because while CBD appears to be an antagonist of the endocannabinoid system\u2019s CB1 receptors, TCH appears to activate those same CB1 receptors, causing feelings of euphoria.<\/p>\n The same cannabinoid-dopamine link that holds hope for new treatments may also point to risks for heavy cannabis users, especially those whose brains are still developing. A 2017 study by researchers at Utah\u2019s Brigham Young University, published in the journal\u00a0JNeurosci<\/a>, found evidence that long-term cannabis use may in fact change the brain.<\/p>\n The study focused on the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a region of the brainstem identified as one of the two most important clusters of dopamine receptors (the other is the adjacent\u00a0substantia nigra<\/em>). The researchers examined how the VTA\u2019s cells changed in adolescent mice that received a week of daily THC injections. They compared the results on normal mice and\u00a0\u201cCB1 knockout mice\u201d \u2014 that is, those genetically tweaked to disable their CB1 receptors. They especially looked for impacts on GABA cells.<\/p>\n The findings determined that \u201cTHC acutely depresses GABA cell excitability\u201d \u2014 which actually means that high-THC cannabis can overcome the GABA cells and cause the release of more dopamine, giving you that sought-after buzz.<\/p>\n Here the team postulates a clue to the brain mechanism behind what is called \u201ccannabis use disorder<\/a>\u201d \u2014 defined by the\u00a0Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5<\/a>\u00a0as a \u201cproblematic pattern of cannabis use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course,\u00a0critics have pointed out<\/a>\u00a0that such categories are inherently question-begging: Is the \u201cimpairment or distress\u201d actually caused by the cannabis use, or are people who suffer from such \u201cimpairment or distress\u201d for unrelated reasons self-medicating (consciously or not) with cannabis? If the latter, cannabis use may actually be having a positive, therapeutic effect on sufferers, and the theorists of \u201ccannabis use disorder\u201d may be reading things precisely backwards.<\/p>\n How this research is applied and interpreted by the psychiatric establishment definitely demands some critical scrutiny, given the long-entrenched prejudice against cannabis, and bias in favor of prescription pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n In 2014, numerous media reports (both\u00a0American<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0British<\/a>) touted a study published in the\u00a0Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/a>\u00a0purporting to link cannabis use to anxiety and depression. The researchers studied the brains of 24 cannabis \u201cabusers\u201d \u2014 defined as those who smoke multiple times a day \u2014 and how they reacted to methylphenidate (more commonly known as Ritalin), a stimulant used to treat hyperactivity and attention-deficit disorder. The study found the \u201cabusers\u201d had \u201cblunted\u201d behavioral, cardiovascular and brain responses to methylphenidate compared with control participants. The \u201cabusers\u201d also scored higher on negative emotional reactions. The researchers concluded that cannabis interferes with the brain\u2019s reaction to dopamine.<\/p>\n Mitch Earleywine, professor of psychology at SUNY Albany,\u00a0speaking to this reporter<\/a>\u00a0at the time, raised the same questions about possible confusion of cause and effect in such studies.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that giving folks Ritalin or any other stimulant in an effort to assess dopamine release says little if anything about how cannabis users would respond to natural sources of reinforcement,\u201d Earleywine said. \u201cThese people also weren\u2019t randomly assigned to use cannabis, so we have no idea if the altered dopamine reaction preceded or followed cannabis use. Finally, I think if any Big Pharma product did the exact same thing in the lab, we\u2019d be reading about how it protected people against the addictive potential (and induced dopamine release) associated with Ritalin or other stimulants.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong>\u00a0do you think cannabis is addictive?<\/p>\n The post Cannabis & Dopamine: Link Reveals Both Risks & Hopes<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The cannabis plant contains over 100 different cannabinoids, each interacting with the human brain in a specific way. Researchers are increasingly focusing on the key role dopamine plays in those interactions. This is not surprising, as dopamine is critical to the brain\u2019s \u201creward system,\u201d which has a part in creatingContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[605,50,4687,9775,263,53,5719,420],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38402,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38401\/revisions\/38402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}All About the Dopamine<\/h4>\n
Cannabinoids As \u2018Anti-Psychotic\u2019 Treatment<\/h4>\n
Long-Term Brain Changes?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Some Skepticism Warranted<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Cannabis & Dopamine: Link Reveals Both Risks & Hopes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"