Kind: captions
Language: en
- [Narrator] Could low doses of cannabis
benefit an aging brain?
Evidence suggests it can,
if the brain belongs to a mouse.
Nearly every organ in your body,
and in the bodies of mice,
has receptors for endocannabinoids,
molecules produced naturally by the body
that are named after cannabis.
Collectively, this is the
endocannabinoid system,
which helps regulate things like sleep,
cognition,
memory, and mood.
- One of the things
that we have discovered
about the endocannabinoid system
is the fact that it changes with age.
And in old age,
its activity decreases.
- [Narrator] Since our natural
cannabinoids wane in old age,
some researchers have been studying
whether cannabinoids
from cannabis, like THC,
might have a beneficial
impact for senior citizens.
Well, senior mice, that is.
Like humans, mice turn gray,
move slower,
and perform worse on
cognitive tests as they age.
It's something that's easy to observe
in a maze partly filled
with a white-colored liquid,
which obscures the mice's scent trails
and prevents them from seeing the exit.
- When we take young mice
and we put them in a
learning and memory maze,
they will very quickly
learn to find the escape.
Our aged mice will also
learn how to escape the maze
but they just don't learn as efficiently.
So it might take a young
mouse 16 attempts in the maze
to master it.
But it might take an old mouse 25.
And so we can see that the
old mice can still learn.
They just don't learn as quickly.
- [Narrator] Researchers
in Germany, Israel,
and the US tried treating old mice
with low doses of synthetic THC.
One of the researchers is Nicole Ashpole.
- When we treated old animals
with a synthetic version
of THC at low doses,
we would see a stimulation effect.
They would move faster,
they would move more,
they had increases in their ability
to be able to solve the
mazes more efficiently.
That is consistent with
what had been reported
by the other groups
showing really low doses
could lead to a beneficial effect.
- [Narrator] So could
low doses of cannabis
improve cognition in an aging brain?
- One of the biggest
hallmarks of aging that we see
that can contribute to frailty
and other impairments in advanced age
is increases in inflammation.
Cannabis and many cannabinoids
can reduce inflammation
within the brain and throughout
the rest of the body.
And so it's likely that
when we're administering cannabinoids
that are acting as
anti-inflammatory signals,
that they are inherently
improving the aging system
by simply taking away the
stressors of inflammation.
- [Narrator] Animal studies
have demonstrated a connection
between reduced inflammation
and low doses of cannabis.
And among a group of human
patients living with HIV,
a population characterized by inflammation
of their central nervous systems,
cannabis exposure was linked
with lowered neurocognitive impairment.
In addition, there's some
evidence that cannabis
may be able to improve sleep quality,
including in humans,
which in turn can impact cognition.
Scientists are still studying THC,
and whether stimulating
our endocannabinoid system
with cannabis compounds could
help us as we get older.
But some research results
do seem fairly consistent:
younger brains, which
are still developing,
are more at risk for
negative impacts from THC.
(eerie music)