Cannabidiol improves memory - scientists have proven

Free access to some marijuana preparations in Western Europe allows any person to freely buy CBD-containing products in the store. It has already been officially recognized that cannabidiol in its pure form is absolutely devoid of psychogenic activity, and in competition with the hallucinogenic THC, it even competes for receptors and specifically changes the action of tetrahydrocannabinol. But the researchers were interested in the long-term effects on the brain that can appear in people who regularly use marijuana.

However, almost all studies on the effects of marijuana have focused on the response of the gray matter of the brain. This structure controls motor skills, the emotional sphere, and, most importantly, higher mental functions. A lot of research has been done, and there is no single and unambiguous conclusion yet. Too many positive changes in the specifics of the manifestation of the functional activity of the gray matter rest on the hallucinogenic properties of some components of marijuana. There are promising developments on the scheme of marijuana use, in which the hallucinogenic activity of cannabis is almost completely leveled, but the dynamics of positive changes is preserved.

But the cognitive work of the brain, based on what is stored in memory, is based on signals in the neural network. But just the white matter of the brain controls the storage of long-term and short-term memory, and controls the modulation of neural signals and their translation. Therefore, large-scale work was undertaken by German researchers to identify the reaction of white matter to the use of marijuana and some cannabinoids.

Why CBD Protects Memory

The studies, which were conducted at the clinical center of the Munich Institute of Medicine, involved 120 volunteers from 20 to 35 years old, of which one half regularly used marijuana. The control group had never tried cannabis at all. But at the same time, within each group, there were internal gradations, for example, among the members of the control group, there were participants who drank beer several times a week.

For 3 months, with a regularity of twice a week, the participants were examined through MRI of the brain. The results were accompanied by analyzes of the biological media of the body: blood, urine, saliva. They were used to determine the substances that the volunteers had taken over the past days.

The conclusion that the researchers made is unequivocal! In both groups, no differences were found in the structure and density of the studied substance of the brain. To any of the components of marijuana, the white matter is not susceptible. At the same time, changes were analyzed not only in the microstructure of biological tissue, but also at the macrolevel of the organ. All changes were correlated with the normal dynamics of the functioning of the brain, when compared with the control group.

But more curious was a side effect from one of the members of the control group, the one who did not smoke marijuana. This participant, 2-3 times a week, drank about a liter of beer. Since the research was carried out in Munich, this is part of the local tradition.

The negative effect of alcohol on the white matter of the brain is known and experimentally confirmed. But in this participant, first, MRI showed positive dynamics in white matter trophism, and then traces of cannabidiol were detected in blood tests. When interviewed, the participant stated that he bought CBD oil and took it regularly in the morning following the recommendation of a family member.

This was not forbidden by the conditions of the experiment, because the participants had to lead a normal life, and only regularly undergo examinations of the body. However, it was this case that experimentally showed that regular use of cannabidiol not only improves the trophism of brain tissue, but also increases its defenses and resistance to the toxic effects of ethanol. The head of the research team, Professor F. Müller, said that the next group of experimenters will study the protective properties of isolated CBD on the human brain.