Weed might make you smarter.

This is a cool article about Synthetic THC making lab animals brains bigger.

Sorry if it's a repost.

http://www.peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/2005...ue9/ne-mj.html

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science: Study shows marijuana increases brain cell growth

By Juanita King, The Muse (Memorial University of Newfoundland)

ST. JOHNâ??S, Nfld â?? Supporters of marijuana may finally have an excuse to smoke weed every day. A recent study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation suggests that smoking pot can make the brain grow.

Though most drugs inhibit the growth of new brain cells, injections of a synthetic cannibinoid have had the opposite effect in mice in a study performed at the University of Saskatchewan. Research on how drugs affect the brain has been critical to addiction treatment, particularly research on the hippocampus.

The hippocampus is an area of the brain essential to memory formation. It is unusual because it grows new neurons over a personâ??s lifetime. Researchers believe these new cells help to improve memory and fight depression and mood disorders.

Many drugs -â?? heroin, cocaine, and the more common alcohol and nicotine â?? inhibit the growth of these new cells. It was thought that marijuana did the same thing, but this new research suggests otherwise.

Neuropsychiatrist Xia Zhang and a team of researchers study how marijuana-like drugs â?? known collectively as cannabinoids â?? act on the brain.

The team tested the effects of HU-210, a potent synthetic cannabinoid similar to a group of compounds found in marijuana. The synthetic version is about 100 times as powerful as THC, the high-inducing compound loved by recreational users.

The researchers found that rats treated with HU-210 on a regular basis showed neurogenesis â?? the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampus. A current hypothesis suggests depression may be triggered when the hippocampus grows insufficient numbers of new brain cells. If true, HU-210 could offer a treatment for such mood disorders by stimulating this growth.

Whether this is true for all cannabinoids remains unclear, as HU-210 is only one of many and the HU-210 in the study is highly purified.

â??That does not mean that general use in healthy people is beneficial,â?� said Memorial psychology professor William McKim. â??We need to learn if this happens in humans, whether this is useful in healthy people, and whether THC causes it as well.â?�

McKim warns that marijuana disrupts memory and cognition. â??These effects can be long-lasting after heavy use,â?� he said. â??This makes it difficult to succeed academically if you use it excessively.â?�

â??Occasional light use probably does not have very serious consequences. [But] there is some evidence that marijuana smoke might cause cancer.â?�

Still, the positive aspects of marijuana are becoming more plentiful as further research is done. McKim says itâ??s not surprising that THC and compounds like it could have medicinal effects.

â??Many have been identified,â?� he said. â??It stimulates appetite in people with AIDS, it is an analgesic, and blocks nausea in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. And it treats the symptoms of glaucoma.â?�

The research groupâ??s next studies will examine the more unpleasant side of the drug.

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Sweet as :D

Nope, only 1 that reads a vast amount can gain the properties and knowledge of the text at hand.

Brains getting bigger? Isnt that like steroids for our brains? Damn the scientists just wont leave things alone, synthetic THC? Please, I dont want that. Just pass me a joint ^_^.

it doesn't mean you get smarter, it just means your brain gets bigger, so theoretically you could fit more stuff inside it. i'm sure you would still learn things at the same rate. i'm not sure if brains work like that but who knows. i love natural THC.

lol if only the feds beleived this, hell would freeze over

100x more potent than thc?!!!! gimmeh!!!!

Yeah, I don't think brain size will effect intelligence. We use a small portion of our brains as it is. Making it bigger will probably just increase the unused space. :p

how do we only use a small portion of our brain?...we use our entire brain dude...other wise whats the point of having it?

Well, I've always heard that humans only use a small portion of our brains. Could be a myth? I ain't no scientist.

u heard the rumor that humans only use 10% of their brain....

which is true in some sense...we use only abou 10% of our brain at a time, we use the whole thing just at different times, for different things

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Originally Posted by Gone

Well, I've always heard that humans only use a small portion of our brains. Could be a myth? I ain't no scientist.

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You only use a small portion of your brain at any given time. Like if you're listening to what someone is saying, there may be activity in Wernicke's area, Broca's area, the frontal cortex, etc., but you may not have any activity in your brain where it deals with balance and movement.

EDIT: That's exactly what the dude said above me.

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Originally Posted by SmokingPlatypus

EDIT: That's exactly what the dude said above me.

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indeed, lol

our brian has folds...thats why we have more brain activity...

take a peice of paper...write all over it and fold it in half...its got the same ammount of info on it when it was unfolded but now it takes up half the room, other animals, like cows are smoother

Whatever on the whole "smarter" thing, you guys take things to seriously. The reason I thought it was interesting is because the synthetic THC stimulated brain cell growth.

This kind of info is particularly interesting to me;

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The hippocampus is an area of the brain essential to memory formation. It is unusual because it grows new neurons over a personâ??s lifetime. Researchers believe these new cells help to improve memory and fight depression and mood disorders.

Still, the positive aspects of marijuana are becoming more plentiful as further research is done. McKim says itâ??s not surprising that THC and compounds like it could have medicinal effects.

â??Many have been identified,â?� he said. â??It stimulates appetite in people with AIDS, it is an analgesic, and blocks nausea in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. And it treats the symptoms of glaucoma.â?�

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yea i read that too somewhere did you know that long term thc inhalation can actually be like anti cancerous as large amounts of thc smoked over a long time kills off damaged cells early this prevents them from becoming cancerous
what happens is when a cell is damaged there is a risk that it will mutate into cancer cells THC kills the damaged cells before they can mutate
i think this is really only goin to work to improve your if you use vaporizers as a lot of other chemicals in cannabis are carconegic
in a way the THc counteracts the carconogens in cannabis smoke
ive been smokin everyday for 10 years an im know i aint exactly dumb
got a better memory than most people too

what would the other 90% be doing then?...it would rot and we would die...we use about 10% at any given time...i think einstein had the highest brain activity documented which was like 12 or 13%

OK, Granny to the rescue. There is a study that says that moderate marijuana use actually will increase your IQ! Kids, print this one up for the next idiot who claims pot rots your brain. It's just the abstract (summary) and is one page. BUT it has the data, which I am going to pass on (even to those of you who are too stoned to print it up). http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/abstract/166/7/887

Kids who don't smoke pot gained 2.6 in IQ

Kids who smoked pot but quit gained 3.5 points in IQ (residual effect?)

Kids who smoke less than 5 joints a week gained 5.8 IQ points:dance:

Kids who smoke more than 5 joints a week lost 4.1 IQ points.:(

So for a higher IQ, smoke in moderation while you're a kid. Incidentally, the second time around in college (I was in my early 50s then) I wrote most of my papers stoned, but "cleaned them up" straight. Hung with the stoner crowd. Graduated with honors. :stoned:

just another reason 2 smoke bud

yea check out this thread i made awhile back "weed makes you a genius" just try to ignore that i thought it was cool to type in pink ok
was it nikola telsa that only dated pigeons and wore pink nailpolish? and he invented things like..free infinite atmosphere harvested energy and such. mwahaha i googled it
Inventions: a telephone repeater, rotating magnetic field principle, polyphase alternating-current system, induction motor, alternating-current power transmission, Tesla coil transformer, wireless communication, radio, fluorescent lights, and more than 700 other patents.

SO YEA Dr. James W. Kalat, author of the textbook Biological Psychology, has another idea for the origin of the 10% myth. Dr. Kalat points out that neuroscientists in the 1930s knew about the existence of the large number of "local" neurons in the brain, but the only thing they knew about these cells is that they were small. The misunderstanding of the function of local neurons may have led to the 10% myth