Does Marijuana Use Affect a Person's Vision?

Common marijuana use could have an effect on how properly sure cells within the eye's retina perform, a small new research finds.

However some consultants say that the proof offered within the research is not robust sufficient to assist the hyperlink between these two components.

The cells that the researchers targeted on within the research, known as retinal ganglion cells, are situated close to the interior floor of the attention's retina. These cells accumulate visible data and transmit it to the mind.

The research included 52 individuals who had used marijuana no less than 7 occasions per week through the earlier month and 24 individuals who had by no means used marijuana. The folks in each teams had been between 18 and 35 years outdated. The researchers verified the marijuana use by testing the folks's urine for THC, marijuana's foremost psychoactive ingredient. [7 Ways Marijuana May Affect the Brain]

The researchers examined the members' imaginative and prescient and located that their eyesight was comparatively good, and that nobody within the research group reported having any visible issues from utilizing marijuana corresponding to blurred imaginative and prescient, in keeping with the research, which was revealed right this moment (Dec. eight) within the journal JAMA Ophthalmology.

To review how properly the members' retinal ganglion cells labored, the researchers used a way known as sample electroretinography, which offers details about how properly these cells perform, in addition to how briskly they transmit visible data from the retina to the mind.

The take a look at revealed that, in comparison with the individuals who did not use marijuana, those that did use the drug had a slight delay in how lengthy it took for data to be transmitted from the retina to the mind, in keeping with the research.

It isn't clear whether or not this potential impact of marijuana is everlasting, or would cease when an individual stops utilizing the drug, mentioned research co-author Dr. Vincent Laprévote, a psychiatrist at Pôle Hospitalo-Universitaire de Psychiatrie du Grand Nancy in France.

However some consultants argue that the research had important limitations, and due to this, it is unclear whether or not or not there's an precise hyperlink between marijuana use and these results.

Extra analysis is required to find out whether or not marijuana use actually is linked to modifications within the functioning of these cells, mentioned Dr. Christopher J. Lyons, an ophthalmologist on the College of British Columbia, who was not concerned within the research. [Marijuana Could Treat These 5 Conditions]

Lyons famous that though the electroretinography outcomes instructed a distinction between marijuana customers and nonusers, the delay did not appear to translate into precise issues with the customers' imaginative and prescient.

Certainly, the marijuana customers within the research didn't expertise any precise visible signs or modifications within the high quality of their imaginative and prescient, Lyons advised Stay Science.

In an editorial that was revealed in the identical journal because the research, Lyons and Dr. Anthony Robson, an ophthalmologist on the College Faculty London who was additionally not concerned within the research, famous that the researchers examined the folks's marijuana use via urine assessments, which aren't as correct as blood assessments.

As well as, there are various different components corresponding to tobacco use, food plan and life-style which may have an effect on the functioning of an individual's retinal cells, and these components might have affected the outcomes of the research, Lyons and Robson wrote.

Furthermore, whereas the research authors mentioned that the abnormalities that they discovered within the research that concerned the functioning of the marijuana customers' retinal ganglion cells may clarify why some marijuana customers expertise altered imaginative and prescient, they didn't current any proof within the research to assist this assertion.

Initially revealed on Stay Science.

Tweet