Cannabis use associated with abnormal brain structure in region involved in processing facial emotion.
Cannabis use is associated with reduced brain volumes in a region involved in facial emotion processing, according to a new study in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.
“People with depression and anxiety often have differences in brain structure in regions that process facial emotions.
For their study, the researchers used MRI scans to compare the brain structure of 20 cannabis users to 35 non-users.
“Adolescents and young adults who use cannabis weekly have abnormal brain structure in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), a region involved in processing and regulating emotions,” Maple told PsyPost.
“These rACC structural abnormalities are related to difficulty noticing subtle differences in facial emotions, even after three weeks of abstinence from cannabis.
This emotion processing deficit could be one reason why many people who regularly use cannabis also have mood disorders (e.g., depression or anxiety).”. »