Cannabis reverses aging processes in the brain | Hacker News Reader

Cannabis reverses aging processes in the brain

medicalxpress.com

29 pointssmb067 comments

> Memory performance decreases with increasing age. Cannabis can reverse these ageing processes in the brain. This was shown in mice by scientists at the University of Bonn with their colleagues at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel).

Directly contradicts previous reports of memory loss from extended Cannabis use.[1]

Who do you believe? It's starting to sound like those 'studies' and 'research' on coffee, eggs, wine, etc. 1 day it's good for you, another day, it kills you.

[1] Source: See the first few results from reputed sources in this search => https://www.google.com/search?q=cannabis+memory+loss

I suspect it’s like almost everything else in this world-in moderation, it’s fine.

Memory is pretty complicated, to the point where recalling memories makes them labile, destroying connections is as important as making connections, there are different processes underlying different types of memory, etc. So it's possible all of these results are replicable in various contexts.

One thing that helps with biology papers is mentally substituting "performance in our mouse model of memory" for memory, they are using some very specific metric for memory in aged mice. It may be that this result doesn't hold true for a different memory metric, in different animals etc.

Also, without reading the full paper it's unclear whether THC harms this type of memory task memory in young mice, which could totally be true.

Maybe it's an age thing? As a casual observer I seem to recall most memory studies being on younger individuals. Often times ones where the brain is still developing. Maybe this study is more about older brains?

Ha! Top notch work on the photo choice there!

Yes it is. Photo is hilarious.

Caution: wildly speculative theory

I've had a pet theory that hallucinogens have an effect on the brain analogous to database refactoring. Users commonly report the experience of mental schema breaking down and being reordered. Maybe older minds have database tables with too many columns and need psychedelic experiences to normalize their DB (ie. mental schema)?

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