Marijuana use heightens fearful experiences
April 6th 2011 22:08
SYDNEY: Signals transmitted through the brain’s cannabinoid system, a series of receptors influenced by drugs like marijuana, can directly control the prominence of our emotional experiences and memory, a new study suggests.
By understanding how cannabinoid receptors can be manipulated to control the way emotional experiences are processed in the brain, researchers hope to learn more about mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
“People with schizophrenia have great difficulty in accurately perceiving the emotional meaning of incoming sensory information to the brain,” said lead author Steven Laviolette, a neuroscientist at the University of Western Ontario in Canada.
“Our findings reveal a novel circuit in the brain responsible for how drugs like marijuana may modulate emotional experience and memory.”
Leads to heightened emotional memory
The heightened emotional experiences identified by researchers depend on a critical link between the amygdala – a region of the brain associated with fear and memory – and the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which plays a role in rational thought and decision-making.
“We know there are abnormalities in both the amygdala and prefrontal cortex in patients who have schizophrenia, and we now know these same brain areas are critical to the effects of marijuana and other cannabinoid drugs on emotional processing,” said Laviolette.
The study, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, examined the effects of cannabinoid drugs on the brains of rats. Using fear conditioning, impaired rats were presented with a particular scent and then given an electric shock to create an emotional experience.
Blocking receptors may help treat disorders
While activated receptors in the amygdala resulted in heightened emotional experiences, researchers also discovered that these same receptors could be blocked to prevent the formation of emotional memories.
“One implication from our study is that drugs which inhibit these cannabinoid receptors may reverse emotional processing and memory disturbances that are found in neuropsychiatric conditions like schizophrenia and PTSD,” said Laviolette.
Pharmaceutical drugs capable of blocking this pathway could reduce the frequency of psychotic episodes in schizophrenics and could aid people suffering from PTSD who have difficulty coping with the resurgence of traumatic memories.
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