Smoking Marijuana Can Make You Lazy, Study Reveals

First Posted: Aug 29, 2016 05:00 AM EDT
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People who smoke marijuana have been found to spend most of their time staring blankly into space and munching on snacks. In a recent study, researchers found that an active compound in marijuana made the study's subject less willing to engage in difficult task, even if they were able to do it.

There has been a common belief that marijuana use can affect person's concentration, as well as motivation, which as a result make them lazy. However, this believe does not have enough scientific evidence to support the association.

According to a report from independent.co.uk, researchers at the University of British Columbia gave tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a chemical compound found in cannabis that affects the brain, to rats in the laboratory. They found that the compound made the rats less participative to do a complex task even if a large reward was at stake. They also found that they were choosing to the easier tasks though smaller prizes were given.

Mason Silveira, of the Department of Psychology at Columbia, lead author of the study and colleagues note that past studies claimed that the activation of cannabinoid receptors, which happens because of marijuana use, can affect a person's ability to decide regarding physical effort, making that person physically lazy. But it is still unclear whether decision-making related to cognitive effort is also affected in the same wat. So, Silveria and his colleagues wanted to find out.

Medical News Today reported that for the study, researchers trained 29 male rats to complete a behavioral experiment, where the animals had to decide if they want to complete an easy or difficult task for a corresponding reward. The more difficult challenge produced a higher reward. The easy task required the rats to react to a light that flashed for 1 second, which earned them one sugar pellet. In the difficult task, the rats had to react to a light that flashed for only 0.2 seconds, which gave them two sugar pellets.

The experiments were done under both normal and controlled circumstances where rats were given THC and cannabidiol (CBD) independently and combined. Researchers found that under normal circumstances, most rats choose a harder challenge to earn a bigger reward. But after being drugged they switched to the easier option.

Essentialsecho.com reported Silveira saying "Perhaps unsurprisingly, we found that when we gave THC to these rats, they basically became cognitively lazy. What's interesting, however, is that their ability to do the difficult challenge was unaffected by THC. The rats could still do the task - they just didn't want to."

Researchers also discovered that when rats were given cannabidiol alone, the researchers found that it did not affect the rats' task choices. However, after the team gave a combination of THC and CBD, they were surprised by what they found. Past studies claimed that CBD can counteract the negative effects of THC, but the current study found, through the results, that both cannabinoids combined led the rats to opt for the easy task.

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