I've heard countless times that "Cannabis doesn't really get me high anymore. I just use it to feel normal." For years, I thought the answer was straightforward: tolerance to the drug. That's also true—but it is an incomplete answer.
A fascinating new study by Katharina Lege and colleagues at Maastricht University will be published on July 15th. It suggests something else may be happening. Tolerance does not mean the brain has recovered. It means the brain has adapted to cannabis.
Rather than examining individual brain regions, the investigators studied how THC changes the brain's dynamic brain states—the constantly shifting patterns of communication among large-scale brain networks. They found not only acute changes after THC exposure, but also persistent neuroadaptations in chronic users. Together, these findings raise an intriguing possibility: repeated cannabis use may gradually produce an adapted new normal operating brain state. This adaptive "Brain on THC" is not simply repeated episodes of intoxication.
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