Your Brain On Bliss

This material is from Michael Pollan’s new DVD of his book, The Botany of Desire.  Pollan narrates how cannabis has flourished by making itself useful to humankind. The DVD provides an excellent, graphic review of THC and anandamide and the endocannabinoid system. It features legendary cannabis/cannabinoid researcher, Dr. Raphael Mechoulam.

Dr. Raphael Mechoulam

Those interested in medical cannabis will remember that the CB1 receptors, discovered less than 20 years ago, are activated by THC and other cannabinoids in cannabis. This activation provides the psychoactive effects of cannabis and also some of its other health enhancing properties. CB receptors also respond to endocannabinoids produced by own bodies, primarily in our nerve cells. The receptors are part of the endocannabinoid receptor (or regulatory) system, now seen as a major physiological system, with important roles in pain relief, neuroprotection and anti-inflammation, even digestion and vision.

Such CB1 activation by THC from the plant world or anandamide from our own cells, along with other cannabinoids produced by the cannabis plant or our own bodies, can provide profound health benefits. Cannabinoids also work by activating CB2 receptors (primarily found on immune cells). Independent of their actions on receptors, cannabinoids are anti-oxidants, protecting nerve cells and other tissue from oxidation stress.

In the photo below, the CB1 receptors are being marked by the inverse agonist, 18F]MK-9470, a positron emission tomography (PET) tracer for in vivo human PET brain imaging of the cannabinoid-1 receptor. Inverse agonists tend to cause receptors to respond in ways opposite their response to agonists such as THC and anandamide. In the case of cannabinoid receptors, hope that inverse agonists might serve as obesity control agents has faded with problems from nausea and mood disturbances.

The physics of what goes on during such as PET scan it astounding. The process would appear to be highly hazardous to health, yet the procedure is commonplace and apparently without risk. Markers with affinities for certain cell types, such as the compounds used above, MK-9470, emit anti-matter. A positron is the anti-matter equivalent of an electron. When it is emitted from the source, in this case on a CB1 receptor in the brain, it travels only a short distance, a millimeter or so, before encountering its matter equivalent, an electron.

When matter electron and antimatter positron meet, the result is annihilation. Such an encounter releases a short burst of highly energetic photons in the form of gamma rays. Why matter/antimatter annihilation with accompanying gamma ray burst inside the brain is not fatal is not exactly clear. Perhaps a high-energy physicist could comment. Or even a low-energy physicist after coffee.

During this positron emission tomography, sensors detect where the gamma rays are coming from and map these in a 3D representation of brain anatomy and activity.  In the images above the patterns of gamma rays being emitted from this matter/antimatter annihilation show the relative distributions of CB1 receptors in various parts of the human brain. See the original research for more detail. Although they are most highly concentrated in the brain, CB1 receptors are also found throughout the entire human body, mainly on nerve cell membranes.

Just as doing push-ups pumps up the size of your triceps, so does aerobic exercise appear to increase the volume of your brain! American researchers reporting in the British Journal of Sports Medicine show that physical exercise, especially aerobic activity, improves the functioning and structure of the brains of older people.

Improvements in brain size, with increased volumes of grey and white matter, and better brain function were found in both those with and without dementia. The so called functions of “executive control,” that help us carry on our lives planning, remembering and changing tasks are those first attacked by dementia. But study co-author Art Kramer of the University of Illinois notes that these functions are those most helped with exercise. Dementia is not only forestalled, but in some ways actually reversed with 6 months of aerobic activity. Brains benefiting from the exercise exertions of their owners maintained plasticity, essentially the capabilities to continue growing, developing and learning.

Although huge rewards accrue to both brain and body from simply walking, these researchers point out the increased benefit from more rigorous aerobic activities, such as jogging, that cause increases in heart rate and rate of breathing. So by all means walk your 10,000 steps a day, at least 5 miles, but also pick up the pace for some of those steps.  Jogging one of those five miles and moving your heart rate up into your age-appropriate training zone will yield great benefits, toning your body and growing your brain. Professor Kramer summarized, “We can safely argue that an active lifestyle with moderate amounts of aerobic activity will likely improve cognitive and brain function, and reverse the neural decay frequently observed in older adults.”

If you bliss out your brain with exercise, there is now good evidence your brain will return the favor. “Runner’s high,” is a flowing, blissful, pain-free experience associated with aerobic exercise. Formerly, the enjoyable mental and physical state was associated solely with endorphins, the body’s natural opiates. With the discovery of the endocannabinoid receptor system and endogenous cannabinoids produced by our own bodies, such as anandamide and 2-AG, this explanation is taking a new turn. After you begin exercising, your level of natural bliss cannabinoid anandamide elevates, and more of these bliss molecules float in your bloodstream, ready to jump the blood-brain barrier and activate CB1receptors on your nerve cells. The result is pain reduction and mood elevation.  So, in addition to endorphins, endocannabinoids such as anandamide reward you for your exercise efforts.

Better adaptive functioning and increased brain volumes are, at least in part, due to neurogenesis, the birth of new brain cells. Both exercise and cannabinoids promote neurogenesis. So, to gain huge health rewards, second-by-second, year-by-year, for your entire life, bliss out your brain with exercise. Walk every day, run some too, lift some weights, and every cell in your brain and body benefits.

President-Elect Barack Obama has promised not to smoke cigarettes in the White House. Does not smoking in the house mean smoking in the entryways of the White House? Out in the Rose Garden?

Cigarettes are not just the most lethal drug confronting America, they are also the most addictive. The power of cigarette’s grip on human behavior its remarkably demonstrated by our next president. Barack Obama is literally the alpha male of human competence and self control. Master campaigner, victorious debater, now triumphantly poised to assume the most important job on the planet!

Yet still, of all people, the President-elect is not able to summon the will to not smoke tobacco cigarettes. As much as he would like to quit, as much as Michelle and the girls want him to quit, he will presumably duck out of the White House, furtively avoiding his family and to the chagrin of his Secret Service detail, light up a cigarette. Statistically, the smoke will cost him 11 1/2 minutes of his life, and each pack of 20 cigarettes will cost him 3 1/2 hours from his life.

Like most people who become addicted to cigarettes, Obama began as a teenager. Recent evidence shows that just a few cigarettes smoked by an adolescent can set up a lifelong addiction. Tobacco cigarettes were not the only drug smoked (and inhaled), “That was the point” by young Barack Obama:

• One drug, cannabis with cannabinoids, he used and inhaled. Later, Obama stopped using cannabis when he chose to do so.
• The other drug, tobacco cigarettes with nicotine, he also used and inhaled. Later, Obama could not totally stop using when he chose to do so.

Receptor discrimination?

When the young Obama smoked a tobacco cigarette, the main drug he inhaled was nicotine. Nicotine activates trans membrane receptors in cells, specifically the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (AChR ). In less 10 seconds after taking a puff of tobacco smoke, nicotine molecules crossed his blood-brain barrier and fit like tiny keys into a locks normally activated by the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. Nictoine causes the receptors to activate, change shape and initiate a chemical cascade. Young Barack would have felt modest elevation of energy and mood from AChR receptor activation.

When the young Obama smoked a cannabis “joint,” the main drug he inhaled was THC, short for Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol. THC activates trans membrane receptors in cells, specifically the cannabinoid receptors, CB1 and CB2. In less than 10 seconds after taking a puff of cannabis smoke, THC molecules crossed his blood-brain barrier and fit like tiny keys into a locks normally activated by the neurotransmitter, anandamide. THC causes the CB1 (and CB2) receptors to activate, change shape and initiate a chemical cascade. Young Barack would have felt mild euphoria from CB1 receptor activation.

Nicotine is a powerful insecticide. THC is a powerful neuroprotective antioxidant, anti inflammatory and analgesic. Tobacco smoking is highly carcinogenic. No smoke inhalation is a good thing (nor is it necessary with the advent of vaporizers, but cannabis smoking is apparently not carcinogenic. Indeed, THC exhibits several capabilities for preventing, even shrinking tumors.

Tobacco use kills over 1,200 Americans each day. Cannabis use kills 0 Americans each day.

Legal Sanctions

The contrast in legal sanctions for young Barack’s smoking activities are the most startling. If Barack had been caught underage with cigarettes, the punishment, if any, would have been minor. Certainly nothing that would jeopardize his career and future presidential run.

Had Barack been caught and arrested for possesstion of cannabis, though, his future would have immediately dimmed. If given a felony conviction and jailed, as would be possible because of cannabis’  misguided, draconian Schedule 1 listing, Barack would likely now be unemployed. Luckily, because Barack avoided arrest, the “justice” system missed its opportunity to crush the life and career of our next president.

Tragically, Obama’s choice for Attorney General, Eric Holder, holds neocon, authoritarian views on exactly this issue. When part of the Clinton Administration, serving as US Attorney for Washington D.C., he pushed for mandatory jail time for young people caught with cannabis in that city.

Hopefully, as Barack Obama puffs on his occasional cigarette outside the White House, he will think of the vast 2,000,000+ prisoner gulag stretched out across America before him. Far too many of these prisoners languish in jail because they were snared by the dishonest, cruel and self-serving laws against a plant. More Americans are arrested for cannabis possession than all violent crimes combined.

As you take your smoke, please think, Mr. President, of all these American lives being crushed and crippled by such torments as mandatory minimums.  Eric Holder gleefully fed young cannabis prisoners to this incarceration industry and as AG may force many more American lives and families down into the grinder.  All for contact with a substance with true medical value, as opposed to the tobacco cigarettes from which Mr. President, huddled outside the White House, draws another nicotine puff.

Ananda, the Sanskrit word for bliss, was used in 1992 to name a substance newly discovered, yet ancient. Anandamide was the name given to this natural chemical compound, a cannabinoid, when it was first discovered being created in the human body. The name is apt. Since its discovery, ever-quickening research is finding that this bliss factor anandamide does indeed provide many remarkably beneficial properties. Cannabinoids activate their natural receptors, discovered just two years earlier, populating the human brain, spine, eyes, bowels, lungs, and nearly every part of the body, of your body.

The breakthrough discovery of this cannabinoid receptor system and its astonishing functions is rewriting major parts of human physiology. This crucial system includes unique mechanisms for neural communications, anti-inflammation and pain control. Cannabinoids offer a whole host of valuable physiological properties including newly discovered preventative and curative effects for many commonly afflicting symptoms and diseases. Expanding knowledge of the cannabinoid receptor system will become a cornerstone of medical and health advances throughout the rest of this 21^st century.

Yet public awareness of these profoundly important health findings is practically nil. Tens of millions of Americans truly need to know about the bliss cannabinoid and its health enhancing properties. They need to know they may find real help with pain, cancer, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and a dozen other devastating maladies. This website and blog seeks to translate these new findings, some only a few months old, from polysyllabic biochemistry to useful personal information.

Written by a glaucoma victim whose sight was preserved by cannabinoids, this addresses especially those suffering millions with conditions for which cannabinoids can provide merciful prevention and powerful treatment. The blog, of course, does not dispense medical information, but it does acquaint casualties of pain, inflammation and a score of diseases to the hopeful findings of new cannabinoid research from around the world.