Regular small doses of the cannabis proved to make a person experience an increase in the learning process, also the memory performance. Previously this was tested in laboratory rats that were old, from which it turned out that they could again have the performance of rats that were young and healthy. They get the cannabis from licensed producers Canada.
What is the detail like? We will discuss it fully here!
The trial was originally carried out on rats with different age ranges and there was a surprising impact on them between whether or not given marijuana.
These findings suggest that tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, a psychoactive content in cannabis, can produce significant effects on older animal brains on younger animals. And if positive effects are passed on to an older human, it can help us prevent cognitive decline which that comes with age, including the dementia.
According to Andreas Zimmer as a neurobiologist from University of Bonn, Germany, treatment with marijuana at medical dispensary can reverse the decline in performance in older animals. Until as if THC treatment could reverse molecular clocks. During a 4-week period, Zimmer’s team included little doses of THC to young rats, adult rats, and old rats. The quantity given is 3 mg per kg of body mass per day – it’s still too small to get drunk on these animals, but researchers want to see the effects their endocannabinoid system is having: receptors on the brain and also nervous system can help regulate appetite, memory, and mood which also responds to THC.
Positive effects are felt in older animals that can suddenly do everything like when they were young and very healthy, even for a long time.
In cognitive tests that control these animals using water mazes, object recognition and peer recognition, young rats can be far better than adults and older ones, as expected. But when they were given a same THC dose, adult and old rats experienced a drastic increase in their performance related to learning and memory testing, as well as young ones, as animals free of cannabis. Miraculously, the effect lasted a long time too – the test did not start until 5 days after the rats completed their THC treatment. Even the increase in results continues for several weeks after the treatment.
Unlike older animals, young animals experience a decline in performance and there are strong reasons for their cannabinoid system.
THC is not a good performance enhancer for all animals in this experiment. Young rats were given the cannabis actually experienced a decrease in performance on the test results. Andras Bilkei Gorzo as a member of the research team told Diana Kwon in The Scientist that it looks like the young brain is getting old and the old brain is getting young. Initially, it sounded illogical, but the researchers realized that when they put the same drug into young animals, it would spur the work of the cannabinoid system too much – it produced a hyperactive effect that was not normal and they had to experience the consequences. In contrast to the elderly, it will normalize weak pathological activity.
This is because THC can imitate the effects of cannabinoids which are naturally produced in body. If there is too much there will be an intoxicating effect. And when the animals are old, giving THC is able to restore the cannabinoid levels (which are associated with the return of cognitive abilities) to be as excellent as still young. Zimmer explained in a press release that with increasing age, number of cannabinoids formed in brain will decrease. When the activity of cannabinoid system decreases, we will experience rapid aging in the brain.
Furthermore, the treatment of using THC turned out to have an impact on gene activity and it looked very positive for older animals as if they were really returning young and as if not using any medicine.
When the team examined effect of THC on activity of the genes of these animals, they found that the genes of older animals described the genes of young animals that did not get the drug. The researchers documented in a research journal that small doses of THC treatment could normalize the weakness of cannabinoid production in older animals and reverse age-related changes in its genes. You could say that there is an anti-aging effect for older animals and the effect of eating on young animals.
Indeed, there is no guarantee that the same positive effect of THC on old mice will be the same if given to dusk-aged humans. But finding this is the progress made by these researchers, who plan to make possible treatment for humans as soon as possible. Bilkei Gorzo told Ian Sample in The Guardian that if we were able to rejuvenate the brains of everyone so that they seemed to have another 5-10 years to perform like young people, then that was a remarkable breakthrough for the medical world. Increasingly, senility and other diseases will appear as you get older.