New research from the University of Colorado Anschutz suggests that cannabis consumption is associated with better cognitive function and larger volumes in several brain regions in adults aged 40 to 77. Anika Guha, PhD, a clinical psychologist and faculty research associate in the Department of Psychiatry at CU Anschutz, noted that while bigger brain volumes are not “always better,” researchers “often see smaller brain volumes due to processes like atrophy and neurodegeneration,” which are “often correlated with reduced cognitive function and increased dementia risk.”
“In this study, we did see that most of the brain regions we looked at demonstrated a positive relationship between brain volume and cognitive performance. So in this sense, we could think of larger brain volumes in the context of aging as possibly reflecting maintained brain volume and preserved cognitive function, as opposed to say something like atrophy that we expect to occur with age.” — Guha in an interview posted to the CU Anschutz website
Guha noted that “for many” of the study’s outcome measures, cannabis “moderation seemed to be best,” and that participants who consumed moderate amounts of cannabis “generally had larger brain volumes and better cognitive performance.”
“At the same time,
