Study: Marijuana 'Dampens' Your Brain's Response To Rewards
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- Marijuana use has long-term effects when it comes to the brain's reward center, according to a newly released study.
The study - conducted in part by researchers at Florida International University - suggests users who smoke marijuana had less activity in the brain when it comes to feeling rewarded - something they believe could lead to harmful behaviors.
"We are all born with an innate drive to engage in behaviors that feel rewarding and give us pleasure," said FIU Psychologist Elisa Trucco, one of the authors of the study. "We now have convincing evidence that regular marijuana use impacts the brain's natural response to these rewards. In the long run, this increase in more compulsive marijuana use is likely to put these individuals at risk for addiction."
Researchers also said that long-term use was associated with a lower response to a monetary reward.
"This means that something that would be rewarding to most people was no longer rewarding to them, suggesting but not proving that their reward system has been 'hijacked' by the drug, and that they need the drug to feel reward — or that their emotional response has been dampened," said lead author and University of Michigan Neuroscientist Mary Heitzeg.
The study - published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry - looked at more than 100, 20-year old participants. It was conducted in collaboration with researchers from the University of Michigan and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) including the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.