The Effects of Marijuana on Visual Spatial Memory, Attention and Decision Making

THE EFFECTS OF MARIJUANA ON VISUAL SPATIAL MEMORY, ATTENTION AND DECISION MAKING
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Marijuana is a drug obtained from virtually all the parts of the cannabis sativa plant. Marijuana is a drug with many names, such as bang, weed or ganja. It is a drug that alters an individual’s mood .Just like any drug; it has many long-term and short-term effects. The most hard-hitting effects of cannabis use goes to the impact on an individual’s memory. It contains a chemical known as Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) The use of marijuana has different effects on different people(NIH,2015). There are those who quickly get intoxicated by a minimal amount of the drug, while there are those heavy users, who have to consume large amounts of the same to be intoxicated. Over time, it has been used by various cultures for its medicinal purposes or for intoxication. Just like any other drug, marijuana affects logical thinking. The United States has got a huge number of people taking marijuana on a daily basis. The figure stands at approximately one million for any single day(Bolla et al.2002).The proof that marijuana has an impairment effect on the cognitive ability of a human being has been piling up over time. This paper aims at analyzing the effects of marijuana on visual spatial memory, attention and decision making of a person.
T o understand better how marijuana affects memory attention and decision making of an individual, it is important to understand how the brain works. The brain contains neurons, which are the information processors. In order for them to communicate with each other, they are facilitated by neurotransmitters between them. These neurotransmitters have got protein receptors which control the operations of the various body organs in relation to the brain.THC interferes with normal operations of the brain(Bonsor & Gerbis,n.d).The brain has cannabinoid receptors at different parts, which affect coordination, problem-solving, and posture. These receptors are activated by anandamide .The hippocampus, which is responsible for short-term memory, contains high density of these receptors. Hence, when THC agglutinates with the receptors in it, then there is interference of short term memory.
The basal ganglia which is responsible for muscle movement on the other hand, just like the hippocampus, has got high density of the receptors. When THC interferes with these receptors, then there is an interference of motor coordination. This is also the case when it comes to the cerebellum, which controls coordination. Thus it can be said that the use of marijuana interferes with motor coordination, memory and general body coordination (Bonsor & Gerbis, n.d).
As earlier mentioned, the effects of marijuana stem from the presence of THC in it. The chemical plays a huge role in the human brain, which itself has some natural chemicals that have a resemblance to THC. When marijuana is used, it introduces THC into the body. The THC manipulates the brain into the production of dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical that generally relaxes the mind and the individual, creating that ‘feel good’ aura usually experienced by most marijuana users. It is the chemical that is usually responsible for all the pleasurable moments that an individual experiences, such as during romance or feeding. However, over production of dopamine results to generation of hysteria and euphoria(Solowij & Pesa, 2013).
The euphoria and feel-good factor brought about by marijuana use usually pushes people into performing acts that would actually have very risky consequences in the long run. This is especially the case with many adolescents who take marijuana. It is a biological fact that risk-taking increases in the years striding childhood and adolescence .The opposite is the case when an individual heads towards adulthood, perhaps due to increased self-regulation and awareness. The pre-frontal cortex of the brain adjusts accordingly in its structure and functionality, to ensure that this is the case (Steinberg, 2008).
However, with the introduction of marijuana use, the behavior is more exaggerated. In a research carried out by Hanson et al. (2014) to find out the risk taking capability of adolescents, the researchers used the computerized balloon risk task. Adolescents categorized into users and non-users were put to complete the task. Among the parameters for analysis were the number of balloons that were popped, and the mean pumps adjusted. It was found out that there were a higher number of popped balloons by marijuana users than non-users, although the results on the mean adjusted pumps were inconsequential. The marijuana users only had a bad performance when it came to their psychomotor skills, but this again, was of no consequence to the overall experiment. It was therefore concluded that marijuana users were higher risk-takers due to the skewed interpretation of risk brought about by the alteration of the information-processing ability of the brain by THC (Hanson et al.2014).This supports the point that marijuana’s main ingredient blocks most cognitive parts of the brain.
Memory gets affected by this chemical in marijuana. The hippocampus is the part of the brain responsible for information processing as well as memory.THC goes into this part of the brain and blocks it. The blockage of the hippocampus has the automatic effects of memory alteration as well as altering information processing (Winward et.al. 2014).When information ...