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Marijuana use and schizophrenia
Below is a transcript of a WPIX-Channel 11 story that aired Wednesday evening about the new Zucker Hillside Hospital story, suggesting that heavy marijuana use may put adolescents who are genetically predisposed to schizophrenia at greater risk of developing the disorder. The interview with Dr. Sanjiv Kumra, arranged by Michelle Pinto in my office, is airing on TV stations across the country. Also below is a UPI story that ran Thursday in The Washington Times on the same issue. Dr. Kumra collaborated on this study with Dr. Manzar Ashtari and their colleagues at Zucker Hillside.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT PROGRAM: WB11 YOUR HEALTH STATION: WPIX-TV DATE/TIME: 11/30/05 10:00 PM SUBJECT: EFFECTS OF MARIJUANA ON THE BRAIN LENGTH: 3:07 KAITY TONG, ANCHOR: Many people don't consider marijuana a dangerous drug, but a new study suggests otherwise. Researchers have found it can have a profound negative impact on the development of an adolescent's brain, and maybe even predispose young new users to a serious mental illness. Dr. Mike is here now with more on this. Very disturbing. DR. MIKE ROSEN, MEDICAL REPORTER: Yeah, this is something else. It appears that the threat is actually real. With the legal drinking age at twenty-one, many teenagers have an easier time getting hold of marijuana. But it may not be any safer. New research shows that there are changes on brain scans of adolescents who are heavy pot smokers. The scans show diminished development in key areas, areas that are important for higher level thinking. DR. SANJIV KUMRA, NORTH SHORE/LIJ HEALTH SYSTEM: This is a (unclear) that's involved in language development. They are becoming stronger as people get older. DR. ROSEN: Actually, those areas are supposed to be getting stronger. DR. KUMRA: We know that the type of essay that you can write in grade nine is very different from the type of essay that you write at the end of college. DR. ROSEN: But with heavy pot smoking, there's now visual evidence this and other key areas of the brain may very well be damaged, perhaps permanently. The researchers compared the brains of non- pot smoking kids to heavy smokers, actually creating an average brain of each group using a technique called Diffusion Tensor Imaging. DR. KUMRA: And then we subtract those two images to see where the brains are different. And that's where we end up with these different, sort of orange blobs that sort of tell us that these fore-brain regions that we've identified are different in the healthy adolescents who smoke cannabis as compared to the healthy adolescents who don't smoke cannabis. DR. ROSEN: The researchers found the abnormalities were the same as those found in schizophrenics, and when they looked at schizophrenics who smoked pot, the abnormalities were even more pronounced. So, in addition to interfering with normal brain development, heavy marijuana use in adolescence may also lead to an earlier onset of schizophrenia in those predisposed to the disorder. DR. KUMRA: For people who think that marijuana is a safe drug or that it's a benign drug, we have evidence that that may not be true. And we think even more so I think that the adolescents who are at risk for developing schizophrenia, this may be a very dangerous drug for them to be using. DR. ROSEN: Marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug. Over twenty-five million individuals used it in 2003. Around one out of three of these meet criteria established by the American Psychiatric Association for either dependence or frank abuse of marijuana. And, get this, approximately one in five high school students smoke pot at least once a month. So, it's widespread. For more on this story, go to our website at wb11.com/drmike. TONG: Let me ask you this: just how common is schizophrenia, and how much of a factor is smoking marijuana causing it? DR. ROSEN: This is amazing. I was a psych major. One percent of the population has schizophrenia, and it's believed that many more people are predisposed to it. So this is a disorder where you have genetics, and you have environmental factors, and they think that marijuana may be one of those environmental factors that can tip these people predisposed to schizophrenia to get it. And that's why this is such an important issue. |
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Brain scans link pot, schizophrenia.
Brain scans link pot, schizophrenia
Dec. 1, 2005 at 12:00PM Brain scans show adolescents using marijuana have brain construction deficits similar to schizophrenia. In fact, researchers using a technique called diffusion tensor imaging report that adolescents who are genetically at risk for schizophrenia may increase that risk by heavy use of marijuana. Manzar Ashtari, a scientist at Zucker Hillside Hospital, Glen Oaks, N.Y., showed in four small studies "that marijuana affects areas of the brain that are still developing during adolescence and these are the same areas that are affected by schizophrenia." Non-drug-using, healthy adolescents have significant developmental activity in the arcuate fasciculus -- an area of the brain still developing during late childhood. Damage in this area of the brain was evident in scans from 15 otherwise healthy marijuana smokers and 15 schizophrenics who smoked marijuana. This brain region controls speech development, language interpretation and higher-order functions. The studies show heavy marijuana use could trigger schizophrenia in adolescents genetically at risk for the mental disorder, but Ashtari cautioned that the studies are limited by their small size. [Ссылки доступны только зарегистрированным пользователям ] |