Marijuana Prevents PTSD In Rats

[Magda Hassan]

Marijuana Prevents PTSD In Rats

Posted by JacobSloan on September 22, 2011
An Israeli study suggests that the best thing you can hand to one of our soldiers returning from a war zone is a joint. When administered within 24 hours of a traumatic experience, marijuana miraculously prevented post-traumatic stress disorder from later occurring (perhaps due to the drug's temporary effects on receptors in the amygdala, the part of the brain that regulates stress and fear). AFP reports:

Marijuana administered in a timely fashion could block the development of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in rats, a new study conducted at Haifa University has found.
The study, which was conducted by researchers at the university's psychology department and published in the Neuropsychopharmacology journal, found that rats which were treated with marijuana within 24 hours of a traumatic experience, successfully avoided any symptoms of PTSD.
"There is a critical window of time' after trauma, during which synthetic marijuana can help prevent symptoms similar to PTSD in rats," said Dr Irit Akirav who led the study.
In the first part of the experiment, rats were exposed to extreme stress, and were found to display symptoms resembling PTSD in humans.
They were then divided into four groups, with the first given no marijuana, the second given a marijuana injection two hours after being exposed, the third after 24 hours and the fourth after 48 hours.
The researchers examined the rats a week later and found that the group that had not received marijuana, as well as the one that received the injection after 48 hours, displayed PTSD symptoms and a high level of anxiety.
Although the rats in the other two groups also displayed high levels of anxiety, the PTSD symptoms had totally disappeared.
http://news.yahoo.com/marijuana-blocks-p...38511.html

[Ed Jewett]

Ah, yes, relax and put your feet up. Put on some sitar music, torch up a bone, and forget that you just saw your buddies kill an entire family at point-blank range with their hands manacled in plastic and then called in a bomb attack from somewhere to destroy the evidence.

Man, that's some really good sheee-it, dude. [ATTACH=CONFIG]3055[/ATTACH] Just don't call me Bogart.

[Ed Jewett]

The Video the US Military doesn't want you to see!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ2VXJpQ2..._embedded#!

[Ed Jewett]

Nature + Science
Gulf War Syndrome Is Brain Damage Caused By Nerve Gas, Not Psychological Issues, UT Southwestern Study Proves


By Brantley Hargrove Thu., Sep. 15 2011 at 12:48 PM

Comments (31)

Categories: Local Hero, Nature + Science

Share

90

digg

[TABLE="class: image right, width: 300"]
[TR="bgcolor: transparent"]
[TD="bgcolor: transparent"][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

​There's no denying it now: Gulf War Syndrome, characterized by memory loss, lack of concentration, neuropathic pain and depression, is a physiological illness, not a psychological one.A UT Southwestern study, published in the journal Radiology, used a specialized MRI that specifically measures blood flow in the brain and detected marked abnormalities in the brains of those with Gulf War Syndrome. Not only have those abnormalities persisted for 20 years, but in some cases they've worsened.
The findings mark a significant advancement in our understanding of the syndrome, which was for years written off by the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs as a form of combat stress rather than an objectively diagnosable injury. Dr. Robert Haley, chief epidemiologist at UT Southwestern, and a cadre of clinicians and researchers, have struggled with the government for some 18 years for research funding and to have the syndrome recognized as a legitimate war injury caused by chronic exposure to minimal amounts of sarin gas.
"This was really one of the first techniques to show an objective picture of whether there's really brain damage or not," Haley tells Unfair Park.
In this study, Haley used a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, which mimics nerve gas and acts to slow the heart rate and blood flow to the brain, making you groggy. For those with receptors damaged by nerve gas, they don't become groggy at all. In fact, sometimes it has the opposite effect. By administering the neurotransmitter and projecting radio waves into the carotid artery, Haley used a kind of MRI to measure blood flow in response. Veterans afflicted with Gulf War Syndrome didn't respond normally by showing decreases in blood flow to the brain you'd expect.
It's no surprise, then, that many of them report sleep difficulties as well. Approximately 20 percent of the population has a weak form of a gene that protects nerve receptors from sarin gas, Haley says. As a result of this study, it's likely no coincidence that at least 25 percent of veterans who were deployed in Iraq are thought to have the syndrome, according to a VA report.
Because of Haley's work, we now know brain damage is involved. But which specific brain cells, and what's wrong with them? Until we understand the underlying pathology, Haley says, we can't treat them. "We're shooting in the dark," he said, referring to potential treatments. "So far, nobody's guessed right.
"But the research is really going to come to a head in the next six to 12 months."
[B]Tags:

Dr. Robert W. Haley, Gulf War Syndrome, UT Southwestern Medical Center[/B]



Comments (31)