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Cannabis in the Spotlight

What is Cannabis?

The Cannabis Act has been issued for quite a while now, but not many of us are fully aware of what Cannabis is and why it is so important to enforce a law for it. The cannabis we speak of today often includes but are not limited to pot, weed, marijuana, Ganja, dope, or 420.  After more than 90-years of cannabis prohibition in Canada, these “underground” names are now brought together by a common word now known as cannabis. Cannabis is derived from dried plant phenotype species — Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, or Cannabis Ruderalis, where all contains mind altering chemical compounds.

Photo by Cannapedia

It grows wild in many of the tropical and temperate areas of the world. However, it can now be grown in almost any climate, and is increasingly cultivated by means of indoor hydroponic technology.

Photo by National Institute on Drug Abuse

Chemical Substances in Cannabis

Cannabis contains hundreds of chemical substances and over 100 of these are known as cannabinoids. Cannabinoids are made and stored in the plant’s trichomes, a tiny, clear hairs that stick out from the surfaces of flowers and leaves of the Cannabis plant. Cannabinoids can change how cell receptors in the brain and body behave and communicate with each other.

The main active Cannabinoid is called delta-9 tetrahydro-cannabinol or referred to as THC. This is the part of the plant that is responsible for giving people the “high” and often times intoxication. THC has some therapeutic effects but also has harmful effects. These harmful effects may be greater when the concentration or THC potency is higher.

Cannabidiol or CBD is another cannabinoid, but does not produce intoxication in the body or make people “high”. There is some evidence that CBD may hinder effects of THC on the mind. This occurs when the amount of CBD in the cannabis is the same or higher than the amount of THC. CBD is being further studied for its possible therapeutic applications.

Effects of Cannabis Usage

Although there are several types of Cannabis and many are consumed or used very differently, the extent of its effect is determined by the potency of THC content inside each dosage.

Photo by Health Canada

In the short run, smoking cannabis will allow THC to travel quickly from the lungs into the bloodstream, where the blood carries the chemical to the brain and other organs throughout the body. Hence, the THC chemical compound will over-activate the receptors in you brain, which gives people the “high” due to heightened senses. The body absorbs THC more slowly when a person eats or drink it, where the effect usually comes in after 30 minutes.

Short term effects include:

  • Altered senses (taste, sights, smell, sound, and even time)
  • Impaired brain functions (memory, attention, and learning)
  • Change in mood
  • Hallucination, delusion, and psychosis (when consumed at high doses)

The long term effects of cannabis consumption are still being studied across the world, but through several longitudinal studies, it is shown that there is a significant decline in general knowledge and verbal abilities between preteen ages and early adulthood. However, in studies where people started cannabis consumption as adults, the results did not show a notable decrease in mental abilities but increased risks of addiction after long term consumptions.

Long term effects include:

  • Lose of memory, concentration, intelligence (effects are greater when started at adolescence)
  • Lung diseases (chronic cough, respiratory diseases like bronchitis or even cancer, lung infection)
  • Addiction

I hope after reading this blog all of you will be more aware and considerate about Cannabis and its consumption effects.

By: Robin Yuyang Wei

2 Comments

Posted on November 18, 2018 by in Biological Sciences

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Can We Program Our Brains?

Posted on November 16, 2018 by | 1 comment

Imagine a world where altering memory, never being blind and downloading skills into our brains exist. Well, science isn’t as far off as you think! As farfetched as the idea of programming our brains seems an area of research in neurosciences called optogenetics works with neurons (brain cells) and light in order to mimic our natural brain wave patterns and send “fake” signals to the cells. Research done with optogenetics uses altered cell proteins to make them respond to light. This allows us to control specific reactions that take place in targeted parts of the brains quickly that things like drugs just cannot do since they lack the precision and take time.

Image result for optogenetics

Light hitting the neuron By: Julie Pryor

 

Research Being Done

Researchers in a 2007 study used mice and placed a wire into their brain then flashed a super fast blue light into a relatively large area of the brain where control over motor skills are known to be. They were able to get the mice to walk in circles meaning this stimulus allowed the researchers to change the rodents’ motor behaviour!

Image result for optogenetics mice

Optogenetics on mice  https://www.google.ca/search?biw=1280&bih=579&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=54jvW8S_Ef-60PEPqOK50AU&q=optogenetics+mice&oq=opto&gs_l=img.3.0.0i67l2j0l8.13955.14510..15840…0.0..0.43.165.4……1….1..gws-wiz-img…….35i39.8xqXwVvFP-8#imgrc=dcCvQgMIcXmp8M: 

But research hasn’t stopped there, with further understanding of brain wave patterns a recent study (still done on mice) was able to control the light better and use holograms. They used a specialized technique called 3D-SHOT that mimicked the natural brain wave patterns which, when measured by the amount of calcium consumed by the brain, found that this light probably caused the mice to believe what they were seeing, hearing or feeling was real. Calcium was used because it was a good indicator of how much the neurons were firing, the more calcium used means there were more neurons firing and vice versa.

Future Implications

While this research for humans is still ongoing, one day it might be possible to program our brains and treat diseases that do not currently have cures such as Parkinson’s disease or blindness. For example, if we could mimic how eyes send signals to the brain we could use prosthetic eyes with these copied signals and cure blindness!

Inspiration 

By: Fatima Syed

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Posted in Biological Sciences

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The Importance of Sleep

Posted on October 8, 2018 by | 4 comments

Why Do We Need to Sleep?

While not many may know why we need to sleep, most of us do know at some level that sleeping makes us recover the weariness from the previous day or days. Researchers have now shown that sleeping helps us retain information processed in the day time, restore and grow muscles, repair tissues, and even synthesize hormones. However, we still do not know the mechanisms behind much of these known effects of sleep.

A Question Unanswered?

For the past decades, scientist have explored this topic over several aspects. Despite this, it has been difficult to answer this question thoroughly with just one single theory. Instead, sleep patterns can be explained through several sleep theories.

Theories of Sleep

Inactivity theory

One of the earliest theories for sleep, which bases its idea from animal evolution theory.  The theory suggests that inactivity at night serves as a survival function that would keep them out of harms’ way. This is especially the case of animals who would rely heavily on their day time visions. These animals would avoid accidents from happening during night times, for example, trespassing into predatory zones. However, this does not explain why some vision-based animals or humans sleep during the day time.

Restorative Theories

A long held believe is that sleep in some way restores what is lost in the body while we were awake. Sleep provides an opportunity for our body to repair and rejuvenate itself. It is shown that for animals that are completely deprived of sleep loses all immune functions and die within a couple of weeks. This result further supports that some of the major restorative functions like the repair of muscles, protein synthesis, and growth hormone release only occur during sleep.

On its brain and cognitive aspect, the neurons in our brain produces a type of by-product in our brain called adenosine. The build up of these adenosine is thought to be one contributing factor for why we get tired and drowsy. This reaction in our brain is thought to promote the drowsiness while we are awake. When we sleep, our brain has a chance to clear the adenosine from our neuro-system; and when we have enough sleep and wake up, we would feel more alerted with low level of adenosine in the brain.

 Environmental-Cue Theory

This theory involves the internal clock of your body, where the body is in sync with certain cues in the environment. The different light intensities that you receive during day and night are the cues that makes you feel awake or drowsy.For example, light signals received through your eyes transmit a neuro signal to a special area of your brain that it is daytime. This area of the brain helps align your body clock with periods of the day and night. Your body releases chemicals in a daily rhythm, which your body clock controls. When it gets dark, your body releases a hormone called melatonin, which signals your body that it’s time to prepare for sleep, and it helps you feel drowsy. Exposure to bright artificial light (TV screen, computer screen, cell phone etc.) in the late evening can disrupt this process, making it hard to fall asleep. As the sun rises, your body releases a hormone called the cortisol, which naturally prepares your body to wake up.

source: Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School

Recommended hours of sleep for each age group:

The amount of sleep you need each day will change over the course of your life, but irregular sleep habits and long-term sleep loss will affect your health in the long run. Certain medical conditions are associated with sleep disorder or deficiency . For example:

  • high blood pressure
  • attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
  • heart failure
  • obesity

Hence, it is necessary to maintain a healthy sleep pattern.  Although sleep needs vary from person to person, the chart below shows general recommendations for different age groups:

source: National Sleep Foundation

The goal of learning sleep patterns is to better understand the importance of sleeps and enjoy its health benefits. Hope everyone can get enough sleep, because it is vital for us in the future. If you have any sleep theories that you would like to share or anything you just want to share, please comment below!

By: Robin Yuyang Wei

4 Comments

Posted in Biological Sciences, Uncategorized

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