Early exposure to cannabis boosts young brains' sensitivity to cocaine, rodent study shows

A study made by Philippe Melas from Karolinska Institutet together with colleagues at Columbia University and the University of Cagliari in Italy published in PNAS shows that cannabis use makes young brains more sensitive to the first exposure to cocaine. By monitoring the brains of both adolescent and adult rats after giving them synthetic psychoactive cannabinoids followed by cocaine, the research team identified key molecular and epigenetic changes that occurred in the brains of the adolescents - but not adults.

Please, read more at https://ki.se/en/cns/department-of-clinical-neuroscience [2020-04-22]

Publication

Cannabinoid exposure in rat adolescence reprograms the initial behavioral, molecular, and epigenetic response to cocaine

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Apr 20. pii: 201920866. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1920866117. [Epub ahead of print]

Philippe Melas is a researcher in the C. Lavebratt & M. Schalling Research Group at the Center for Molecular Medicine

Research Group page, please click here