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Thread: Interesting article on marijuana

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    Default Interesting article on marijuana

    Brain Chemicals Suggest Marijuana's Effects

    Natural Substances May Mirror Pot's Effects on the Brain

    By Miranda Hitti
    WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD
    on Wednesday, September 15, 2004
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    Sept. 15, 2004 -- Marijuana is well known for its widespread effects on the brain. The key to understanding its impact may come from the brain's own pharmacy.

    Brains make their own calming substances called cannabinoids, which are similar to marijuana's active ingredients.

    Cannabinoids are made in the brain's cortex, an area which processes sensory information and orchestrates movement, thinking, learning, and emotions.

    Scientists already knew that the cells in this area of the brain can make their own cannabinoids.

    These cells (pyramidal) normally work to excite neighboring cells; using their homemade cannabinoids temporarily allows more information to be processed by lowering the brain's inhibition of excess information processing. By lulling other brain cells, cannabinoids temporarily leave the pyramid cells free to fire away.

    Now, researchers at Stanford University in California have found that other type of brain cells -- LTS cells -- can also make cannabinoids.

    LTS cells ordinarily keep pyramid cells in check. This process works to guard too much information being processed from pyramidal cells to neighboring cells within the brain region.

    But when LTS cells make their own cannabinoids, they tune themselves out from surrounding cells.

    As a result, the brain's pyramid cells are temporarily freed from inhibition. They then process excess information to other cells.

    The effects can last up to 35 minutes.

    Marijuana's active ingredients may behave the same way, latching on to these cannabinoid receptor sites allowing information to be process in an altered way.

    "A loss of inhibition in pyramid cells could produce changes in perception, in motor function, and in everything the cerebral cortex does," researcher David Prince, MD, says in a news release.

    Studying cannabinoid receptors may one day lead to drugs for conditions such as epilepsy, says Prince, the Edward F. and Irene Thiele Pimley professor of neurology and neurosciences at Stanford University School of Medicine.

    During seizures pyramidal cells fire out of control, one reason may be that neighboring cells get shut down. Targeting and blocking cannabinoid receptors might quiet pyramidal cells activity.

    Prince and Stanford colleagues based their study on lab rats. Their report appears in the Sept. 16 issue of Nature.

    SOURCES: Prince, D. Nature, Sept. 16, 2004. News release, Stanford University Medical Center.
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    God/dess Farrah_Holiday's Avatar
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    Default Re:Interesting article on marijuana

    Another one..

    Marijuana May Yield Cancer-Fighting Drugs

    Pot's Active Ingredient Shows Promise in Lab Tests

    By Miranda Hitti
    WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD
    on Tuesday, September 14, 2004
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    Sept. 14, 2004 -- Marijuana's active ingredient may form the basis for new antiviral drugs that fight cancer-causing herpes viruses.

    Professor Peter Medveczky, MD, of the University of South Florida's medical microbiology and immunology department, and H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, and colleagues worked on the study.

    Their report appears in the Sept. 15 issue of the journal BMC Medicine.

    Key Ingredient

    The researchers focused on marijuana's active ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydrocannibol (THC).

    In tissue culture tests, THC blocked the reactivation of various types of herpes viruses. Infection with herpes virus is recurrent and lifelong. The virus lies dormant in nerve tissue in infected people after symptoms have gone away. Later the virus can reactivate itself leading to an increasing number of viruses and causing another symptomatic infection.

    In the study, researchers tested THC against various herpes viruses including Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpes virus (KSHV) and Epstein-Barr virus.

    Kaposi's sarcoma, prevalent among people with AIDS and a common form of cancer in Africa, stems from KSHV.

    Cancers of cells from the immune system such as Burkitt's lymphoma and Hodgkin's disease are associated with Epstein-Barr virus, a member of the herpes virus family.

    In the presence of THC, cells infected with the viruses couldn't reactivate.

    THC may interfere with a gene called ORF50, which is found in these herpes viruses, say the researchers. This gene helps turn on the virus's machinery that is involved with reactivating the virus; it also helps start viral replication.

    Not a Fix for Herpes

    The researchers also tested THC on herpes simplex-1, which causes cold sores.

    It didn't work.

    THC appears to specifically work against herpes viruses that cause these tumors -- gamma herpes viruses.

    New Drugs Ahead?

    The findings may lead to the development of new drugs that thwart cancer-causing herpes viruses from reactivating, say the researchers.

    Any new antiviral drugs based on THC would not have marijuana's psychoactive effects.

    The next step is testing THC's benefits on lab animals.

    No Pot Prescription

    According to a news release, Medveczky says that since THC can suppress the immune system, smoking marijuana might do more harm than good to patients infected with these viruses who often have weakened immune systems.

    "Our findings do not recommend that people take pot to prevent or treat cancers associated with gamma herpes viruses," says Medveczky in the news release.
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    Default Re:Interesting article on marijuana

    hmmmmm...


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