Cannabis and memory | Fifth Ave Green House

Cannabis and memory: The complex connections and surprising effects of CBD

• Because cannabis has diverse effects on the brain, the exact nature of its effects on memory is complex and not yet fully understood.
• The more research is done, the better we can understand the mechanisms by which cannabis and CBD affect memory.

The stereotype of a stoner is often that of an absent-minded and forgetful person. While marijuana can have an effect on memory, the reality is more nuanced and interesting.

There are two main categories of storage: Short-term memory and long-term memory. These differ in what information is stored and how it is stored. Short-term memory is responsible for storing temporary information and deciding what to do with it. Letting unimportant information disappear or passing important items to our long-term memory, where we store the information indefinitely.

There's also working memory, which is a crucial part of short-term memory and plays an important role in how we process, use, and remember information in everyday life. Working memory refers to the ability to hold information in your mind for a short period of time, such as remembering someone's phone number until you can write it down, or the directions someone gives you to get to a particular destination.

“There's no doubt that heavy marijuana use impairs working memory,” said Kristen Morie, a researcher at Yale University School of Medicine. “If you talk to someone who's high, they'll forget their train of thought.”

Researchers attribute the memory impairment caused by marijuana to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which binds to CB1 receptors in brain regions critical to memory, such as the hippocampus. This binding interrupts the encoding of new information, thereby hindering its storage and later retrieval.

Positive memory effects in certain situations

Studies have also shown that cannabis can have a positive effect on neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's and epilepsy, which affect memory. In mostly animal studies, researchers found that cannabis compounds can slow or even stop the progression of these diseases – mainly by inhibiting the formation of neurons.

The role of CBD in protecting established memories

A 2017 study found that THC appeared to have less of an impact on the ability to recall existing memories and the task of remembering previously memorized words.

In addition, CBD (cannabidiol), a compound in cannabis, appears to mitigate the memory-impairing effects of THC. In a 2020 study, participants' memory performance was not impaired when they used THC along with CBD, further suggesting that CBD may counteract the memory-impairing effects of THC and play a protective role. On average, participants' accuracy was about the same in both tests. “So if you give someone a [cannabis] If they consume a strain with THC and high CBD, they may not report as many “working memory deficits,” Morie said.

No permanent memory impairment

A 2018 review of 69 studies of adolescents and young adults found that people who regularly smoked marijuana had significantly improved memory when they quit for at least 72 hours. In fact, they performed just as well on memory tests as people who never or rarely smoked marijuana.

As with all cannabis, the complex relationship between cannabis and memory requires further research to fully understand the long-term effects, although recent research suggests that the negative effects are far less severe than previously thought.