Study: Low Doses of THC Fight Brain Damage
By TruthOnPot.com on May 30, 2013
THC was given at doses 1,000-10,000 times lower than a regular joint.
Marijuana’s effect on the brain has been debated by health experts for decades. While some studies have linked chronic marijuana use to minor cognitive deficits, others point to a protective effect.
(MORE: Marijuana and Your Brain)
A recent study led by Prof. Yosef Sarne from Tel Aviv University suggests the latter – that is, a single low dose of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) was able to protect the brain from long-term damage induced by a variety of experimental toxins.
What’s more, it seemed to be effective at extremely low levels – between 1,000 to 10,000 times lower than the THC content of an average marijuana joint – and within a broad window of time. The study found that THC offered protection from brain damage when given up to a week before exposure to toxins or 1-3 days after.
Although Sarne’s research has been limited to rodents so far, his newest paper suggests reasons for why animal research may provide more controlled results – at least when it comes to the brain.
For example, results from human studies may be tainted by factors such as drug residues, abstinence effects or flaws in the experimental design. By comparison, laboratory studies tend to be more standardized and are not hampered by the strict regulatory hurdles that face medical marijuana researchers.
While Sarne identified a similar effect of THC against epilepsy-related brain damage in a prior study, he says that his newest findings demonstrate a general protective effect of THC which could be applied to many cases of brain injury. Furthermore, the long window of therapeutic opportunity leads him to believe that THC could be used as not only a treatment for brain injury, but a prevention as well.
Other than brain injury, the neuroprotective properties of marijuana seem to possess a number of other medical applications.
According to Sarne and his co-investigators, previous studies have suggested a protective role for cannabinoids in the progression of multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s disease. Prof. Sarne is currently testing the ability of low doses of THC to prevent damage to the heart.
The study was conducted at Tel Aviv University’s Adelson Center for the Biology of Addictive Diseases (Israel) and published in the journals Behavioural Brain Research and Experimental Brain Research.
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