“Evidence further indicates that the adolescent brain may be particularly sensitive to disruptions in normative fluctuations in endocannabinoid signaling, associated with altered neurodevelopment and behavior.
The researchers aimed to evaluate the potential associations between MRI-assessed cerebral cortical thickness development and cannabis use among a longitudinal sample of 799 adolescents who reported being cannabis naive at study baseline and who had behavioral and neuroimaging data available at baseline and 5-year follow-up.
Albaugh and colleagues observed an association between the spatial pattern of cannabis-related thinning and age-related thinning in this sample, as well as a positron emission tomography-assess cannabinoid 1 receptor-binding map derived via a separate sample of participants.