What does marijuana do to the growing brain?

An Allstate Insurance advertisement suggests that teenagers are missing part of their brain.

And while any parent can probably say that is true, Great Falls neurological surgeon Paul Gorsuch said there is scientific evidence that shows that your brain is not fully developed until you are in your early 20s, usually around age 23.

"While the overall size of the brain does not change much during adolescence, relative amounts of different components, nerve connections, nerve growth, and brain chemical transmitters are all maturing," Gorsuch said.

The frontal cortex of the brain is where all these changes are happening. It's the last brain region to fully develop. This scientific evidence explains a lot about teenager's behaviors, because the frontal cortex is responsible for executive functions including logic, decision making, abstract reasoning, evaluating options, weighing probabilities and determining risks.

If you change the development of your frontal lobes, it is likely those abilities you have will be diminished from what you might have been, but much has gone unproven, explained Gorsuch.

When a person smokes marijuana, the chemical binds to special cannabanoid receptors, many of which are in the frontal cortex of the brain.

When the drug locks to the receptor, it creates a series of complex reactions.

"Any chemical that has an effect on our brain — sugar, narcotics, nicotine, the cannabinoids in marijuana, adrenaline — create that effect by binding or docking to a receptor," Gorsuch said. "In the case of narcotics, one of the ultimate results is that we may 'feel' less pain."

Cannabanoid receptors are present in the body at only 14 days gestation, which means they are crucial for telling nerves where to go, what to make, what to do and what to connect to, Gorsuch said.

"Basic science says that these are important in how the brain develops," he said.

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