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RIP JMorrison

I was thinking about people saying the myth about marijuana kills brain cells because you can't remember things when you smoke.

Well your brain takes things into your short-term memory "container" and after time transfers this memory to long-term. So maybe marijuana just blocks something that are getting transferred to the long-term memory "container"?

And possibly interrupts the sequence of how it transfers the memory when you are high.


Or I probably haven't been reading about these things enough and someone has proven something like this already. But oh well.

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There are things known and there are things unknown and in between are the Doors - Jim Morrison

9-11-01

 

Lawnmower

Well, I'm not very well up on the research either, but then very little MJ research is objective, one way or the other. So... I guess we just have to go with our own personal experiences.

I've thought a bit about this thing myself, and I've kind of come to the following conclusions...

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Firstly, by definition, any mind-altering drug *alters your consciousness.* In other words, we perceive things in a qualitatively different way to our usual waking perception. It's a different state of consciousness, just like waking consciousness is different from sleeping consciousness. Obviously with a *serious* mind-altering drug like LSD, this effect is much more pronounced than with a drug like marijuana.

Secondly, the brain is really only able to deal with what it's familiar with. It stores memories in a way that relates them to other similar memories. This is why for example we often find it hard to remember the faces of foreigners. Or why all sheep look alike to most people, but not to other sheep, or to shepherds.

In the same way, the brain is really best adapted to remember things in our normal waking state of consciousness. Remembering things from other states of consciousness would have served no great purpose for our evolutionary ancestors, while remembering facts from their waking experiences was vital. This explains why we generally only remember our dreams vaguely, if at all.

Similarly, the brain isn't equipped to remember things well from the altered states of consciousness brought on by psychoactive drugs such as alcohol, marijuana, etc.

The idea that MJ kills braincells is one that is hotly disputed, and the jury's still out on it. But even if it did, it would be a very small effect, and would in NO WAY account for the memory loss. Because of the way the brain is designed, it has a very high built in "redundancy". I remember reading in some neural network textbook that you could lose something like 40% or 50% of your braincells without having any drastic effect on your brain, provided that they were equally distributed. When it comes to network design, nature has really outdone herself!

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That's my take on it anyway... anyone else have any ideas?

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Lawnmower

manny

Have you ever smoked and afterwards had thoughts racing through your head? I believe this happens partially because of the enhancement quality of marijuana, i.e. everything is so much more interesting and you notice things you don't notice when you're straight. All of this information is fed into your brain, and you end up thinking so much about this "new" (unnoticed when straight) stimuli/information that your brain doesn't have time to remember most of it and it is more difficult to differentiate between what needs to be remembered and what doesn't.

I don't personally believe that marijuana kills brain cells (unless you hold your hits in for way too long*), but then again, being a regular marijuana smoker, my opinion is biased.


* I've heard that most of the THC in your lungs gets absorbed within a few seconds of a hit and anything beyond that absorbs carcinogens and starts killing off brain cells. I've also heard 7-8 seconds until brain damage starts occuring. Lastly, I've heard that ALL of the THC is absorbed in 10 seconds. Being the paranoid cheapass efficiency nut that I am, I go with 10 seconds and usually hold my hits in a few seconds longer than that (usually inhaling air every few seconds, unless the hit is so harsh that releasing my windpipe could lead to coughing and loss of a hit)

HillBilly

Howdy!!!

Ya'll kickin butt on this one! I'd like to add something that came to mind when I was reading the posts. Along with all the other things you guys have covered. I think the importance of the information being presented has a lot to do with how well we remember it.

If the information is important to you, you'll relate to and remember it easier. When high, people tend to dwell in thought. Inner-monologue, day dreaming, contemplating thoughts, concepts and ideas etc...

So, if the information being presented is of more importance than inner thinking, chances are the person will be able to absorb better.

~~hb