Your brain has a receptor for THC.
I figure this is an important thing to know, or maybe just an interesting conversation starter. I recently read this article about the whole thing, it was published in 1995 in this extremely legit magazine. Check out their website. The article delves deeper into the discovery of the THC receptor site in the brain.
Basically though, in 1988 the world changed. Thanks to new technology (as always) scientists were able to discover a system of cannabinoid neural transmitters. Back in 1986 scientists developed a synthetic cannabinoid named CP 55,940 – it was 10 to a 100 times more potent than THC (oh shit.)
So the scientists used the synthetic cannabinoid to figure out if there was a receptor for it. “A receptor is determined by exposing brain tissue to various chemicals and observing if an of them uniquely bind to the tissue.” And “Precise scientific criteria was fulfilled in order to determine the existence of a pharmacologically-distinct cannabinoid in brain tissue.”
Scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health found the location of cannabinoid receptors in human brains, as well as other species, only a year later.
What do you think this all means?
This dude Mechoulam, mentioned in the article, talks about how, “Cannabis is used by man not for its actions on memory of movement or movement coordination, but for its actions on memory and emotions,” and asks, “Is it possible that the main task of cannabinoid receptors… (is) to modify our emotions, to serve as the links which transmit or transform or translate objective or subjective events into perceptions and emotions?”
Now my first response: “That dude is so on something.”
But I really liked his closing, “Let us hope, however, that through better understanding of cannabis chemistry in the brain, we may also approach the chemistry of emotions.”
Trippy stuff, he talked about it at a cannabinoid research conference in 1990, but it still sounds pretty nifty today. - KS
[Website: http://www.hightimes.com/ht/home/]
[Article: http://users.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/Drugs/THC/Health/mj.brain.html]
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