Differences of Brain Activity between Alcohol and Marijuana Users

For this week’s article, I chose “Neural Correlates of Verbal Learning in Adolescent Alcohol and Marijuana Users.” The research focused on how alcohol and marijuana use impacted the brain, specifically verbal skills. There were four groups of sixteen to eighteen year-olds involved in the research: individuals with little or no alcohol or marijuana use, participants who binge drink, those who use marijuana, and finally individuals that partake in both marijuana and alcohol. Prior to the experiment, each participant was interviewed to ensure mental stability. They were then tested to make sure they had not used either alcohol or marijuana for thirty days before monitoring brain activity.

The experiment yielded results that I was not particularly surprised to read. The groups showed no differences from one another when testing verbal skills. However, the heavy alcohol consumers had decreased inferior frontal and increased dorsal frontal activity. Marijuana users and binge drinkers showed variations in the bilateral frontal regions with same difference of activity from the control group. Participants that used solely marijuana were reported to have no differences in brain activity than the control group of people who do not use either drug.

Because marijuana users and the control group had the same brain activities, it has been concluded that marijuana does not have long term effects on the brain. Alcohol use changed brain activity, although it does not changed verbal learning skills it still had an impact. The most interesting result showed that alcohol alone brought about different brain activities than binge drinking marijuana users. This means that although marijuana does not affect brain activity alone, it can alter the changed regions when taken in with alcohol. The areas of the brain that showed changes were predominately the frontal regions.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2010.03197.x/abstract;jsessionid=68712B7DCF133948C8ACD4F27904D13A.d03t03?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false