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Heavy Drinking, Pot Use Tied to Teen Brain Changes
(12/17/2012)
Heavy Drinking, Pot Use Tied to Teen Brain Changes
HealthDay News
December 14, 2012
Teens who are heavily into drinking and smoking pot may show signs of breakdown in the brain's wiring system, a small study suggests. Using brain scans of 92 teenagers, researchers found that kids who regularly drank and used marijuana showed negative changes in the brain's "white matter" over 18 months. "White matter is the information highway. It allows the brain to communicate quickly and efficiently," said the study's lead researcher, Joanna Jacobus, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego. If white matter is "less healthy," she explained, there could be subtle effects on a person's memory, attention and mental processing speed.
View the full article here: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/12/14/heavy-drinking-pot-use-tied-to-teen-brain-changes
Keywords: heavy, drinking, pot, teen, brain, changes