One of my favorite YouTube accounts is AsapSCIENCE, a video series created by Mitchell Moffit and Gregrory Brown and devoted to explaining everyday phenomena in about two minutes—with plenty of visual aides. Their latest installment, “Your Brain on Drugs: Marijuana,” is another gem. If you don’t quite understand how or why marijuana has the effect it does on the human mind, it provides a quick, comprehensible explanation that doesn’t stint on the science.
Ordinarily, the video explains, the neurons in your brain “temporarily become unresponsive after firing, to prevent them from overreacting” to stimuli. Cannabinoids “interrupt this approach,” however, and, as a result, each train of thought “becomes the most significant and profound thing ever.” Cannabinoids also affect the amount of dopamine and norepinephrine in your brain, which can lead to feelings of euphoria, but also anxiety.
Sounds about right. Or so I hear, anyway. More below.
