If the latest science is to be believed, or more realistically, if other scientific studies back up its findings, then the stereotype of marijuana turning your brain into a slow, inefficient lump is deeply untrue. This is all because a new brain imaging study suggests that there might be a link between cannabis and youthful brains, especially for older adults.
In a preprint research paper published by researchers from the University of Colorado, Emory University, and Georgia Tech, the authors analyzed brain scans from more than 25,000 UK Biobank participants aged 44 to 81. He found that people who reported having used cannabis at least once in their lives showed brain connectivity patterns that looked meaningfully different from those of typical aging.
It was so meaningful that they almost looked inverted. The neural signatures associated with cannabis ran counter to those usually seen in the brain as it ages.
The team focused on functional network connectivity, essentially, how different parts of the brain talk to each other. Aging tends to weaken communication within the cerebellum and between subcortical regions and the cerebellum, which just so happen to be areas packed with cannabinoid receptors. Among cannabis users, those same connections were stronger. Statistically, the relationship between aging-related brain changes and cannabis-related ones was strongly negative, meaning they pointed in opposite directions.
These differences weren’t just abstract brain maps. Cannabis users also performed better on six out of nine cognitive tests, including measures of memory, reasoning, executive function, and fluid intelligence. Those advantages showed up consistently across middle-aged and older groups, from people in their late 40s to those over 66.
Before you go telling everyone that you are mentally younger than them simply by virtue of being a burnout, keep in mind: the study is a preprint and hasn’t been peer-reviewed, meaning you should not take any of this to heart. It’s also cross-sectional, meaning it can’t prove cannabis caused any of these effects.
It’s possible that people with healthier or more resilient brains were more likely to experiment with cannabis. Also, the measure of cannabis use was broad. Maybe way too broad. Simply asking “Have you ever used cannabis?” This is painting with too broad a brush. Another research team may ask more targeted questions that would yield more useful data, such as “how often?” and “how recently?”
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