So , before moving into specifics of taking cannabis or not taking cannabis , who should , who shouldn't , what the medicinal purposes are and what some of the newer exciting data point to I just briefly want to make a list and I promise very briefly , I know I'm not often concise , but I do try to be thorough for your sake . I wanna make a very brief list of the different brain areas that are impacted by THC and CBD and why THC and CBD have the various effects they do when somebody smokes or ingests cannabis doesn't matter what the THC or CBD ratio is if they experience deficits in memory and that's almost always present , that's going to be because of reductions in electrical activity within this brain region . We call the hippocampus .
If it's consumed over long periods of time , we'll talk about short , medium and long term consumption , occasional consumption going forward . So what I'd like you to take away from this component of the discussion is first of all the mechanism of action by which cannabis impacts the brain and body . But in particular , the brain is going to be through CB one receptors and those CB one receptors can lead to either an acceleration or a break on particular biological mechanisms .
Ok . So if someone smokes cannabis or they ingest cannabis very rapidly gets into the bloodstream and the components that are psychoactive , get into the bloodstream and are immediately able to access neurons and other cells and start having these effects of parking at those endogenous cannabinoid receptors and impacting the signaling between neurons , which leads to the subjective effects of cannabis including THC and CBD . So let's talk about what those different subjective effects are .
So we tend to increase focus . This is something that's not often discussed about cannabis , but it can , especially the sativa varieties can increase people's level of focus to particular things that something they're watching or something they're doing or music allows them to narrow their sense of focus that's going to occur by activation of CB one receptors in the so called prefrontal cortex , which is just behind the forehead . And the prefrontal cortex acts as a strong modulator of so called limbic circuitry and other circuitry that is more stress oriented .
But it could also be something as trivial as watching cartoons or watching a movie , which is , you know , not trivial in its own right ? But in terms of thinking about the creative aspects or the creative tivity , stimulating aspects of cannabis , not um sort of productivity oriented , so narrowed , focus , elevated mood , more relaxed and yet energetic . That's the major effects of the sativa varieties except , and this is a really big bold faced triple underline , except except in some individuals depending on dosage , but also depending on pre existing neural circuitry and propensity for anxiety .
