Why did the human body develop the ability to engage with cannabinoids? I’ve heard people postulating that we’re practically build to get high, as a justification for cannabis usage, but I can’t really believe it would be the main cause for this specific natural selection. I mean; from a darwinian perspective it doesn’t really make sense – how would getting high be survival of the fittest? Also, there exist other cannabinoids than THC, so what is the effect of these, and how present are they in our daily lives and what are the effect of these?
In: 170
Endocannabinoids are signalers for neural activity. When one neuron sends a signal to another, the targeted neuron spits out endocannabinoids in response. Cannabinoid receptors are inhibitory, and the endocannabinoid molecules aren’t bound only to synapse and can float around.
This has two purposes. The first, called *retrograde signalling*, is to tell the sender neuron “message recieved”. The second, called *neural sharpening*, is to tell all the other neurons nearby, which may also be “listening in” on the communication, to “shut up” so the one actually getting communicated to can do its job.
Every single neuron uses this system, though some areas of the brain make greater use of it than others (hippocampus and cerebellum in particular.) The cells populating these areas have more cannabinoid receptors on their cell membranes, and so are more sensitive to their effects. Consequently, they are the regions most strongly affected by THC.
Latest Answers