This Is Your Body On Cannabis

your body is made up of many different anatomical systems all working together to form what we call an organism so for instance you have a nervous system digestive system cardiovascular system just to name a few and each of them are going to have their own dedicated roles and jobs for your body but operating within them are what you could almost think of as subsystems that are going to integrate them together and one of those is the endocannabinoid system and with the use of the cadavers here in the lab today we're going to take a look at the various organs and structures that the endocannabinoid system is involved with and see exactly why it is that when you consume thc or cbd or some of the other cannabinoids they can have such far-reaching effects on the body it's going to be a fun one let's do this the endocannabinoid system is composed of cannabinoid receptors as well as endogenous cannabinoids and the enzymes that are going to create and break them down now in today's video we're only going to be focusing on the receptors and the cannabinoids just understand there are going to be plenty of chemical reactions occurring during this entire process now let's go ahead and begin with the cannabinoid receptors and to best understand them we're going to want to take a look at the human brain and that's exactly what you're seeing here you're seeing the right hemisphere of the human brain now if you could zoom in and zoom in and zoom in and zoom in onto the surface of the brain what you would see would be millions if not billions of neurons neurons are going to be the cells of communication in your body now if you could zoom in onto the surface of those neurons you would find many different types of receptors now receptors you could think of as if you i guess it's probably best to think of it in a lock and key type of analogy where the receptor would be the lock and then whatever's going to bind to it would be the key and when that occurs you're going to get some kind of reaction with the cell well with cannabinoid receptors what's going to happen is when the cannabinoid binds to them that is going to initiate or at least modulate i should say the release of what are called neurotransmitters now you've probably heard of neurotransmitters before they are things like dopamine serotonin and glutamate so when cannabinoids bind to them that is actually going to modulate how those are going to be released and that's going to be pretty important but in terms of cannabinoid receptors there are two one primary ones that we're going to be focusing on there are more but the most well studied are going to be cb1 and cb2 that stands for cannabinoid receptor type 1 and cannabinoid receptor type 2. now with the brain that's where you're going to find the highest density of cb1 receptors now we do find them in other places in the body but they are most dense here in the brain and even in the brain they're going to have varying densities depending on where we're looking at so this highly folded region is what we call the cerebral cortex and you're going to find a ton of cb1 receptors here in this cerebral cortex but if i actually flip the brain over and we look at it from this midline view this region right here doesn't really look like much but this region is what we call the hypothalamus here you are also going to find a lot of cb1 receptors you're also going to find cb1 receptors here in this really cool looking structure called the cerebellum but this is where i want to stress the the point that there's going to be varying densities because your cerebellum is not going to have the same amount of cb receptors as rodents and this is important because the cerebellum is actually going to be involved with motor control but with rodents when they are partake of cannabis or cannabinoids i should say their motor control is extremely affected because they have a higher density of cb receptors in this area as compared to a human so even though motor control is going to be affected in human beings not the same degree meaning you actually have a higher density of cb1 receptors located in the cortex of the brain than you do the cerebellum but you're also going to have cb receptors in areas we can't really see so if you could kind of picture deeper down like kind of like in this region here and then right here and we just can't see it in this dissection there are going to be uh there's going to be another structure called the hippocampus now the hippocampus some of you might recognize as being associated with memory which is probably not going to surprise you especially when we're talking about cannabis there's also going to be other structures that are going to be distributed all throughout the brain which are going to belong to the umbrella term called the basal ganglia now the basal ganglia do a lot of different things but they are going to be involved in decision making as well as memory so you're probably starting to get an understanding of how cannabis is going to start affecting all of these areas because it really comes down to the type of receptor and the density of the receptor located in the brain it's no secret that biology is complex in fact it's one of the primary reasons i chose to make a career out of understanding biology i really do enjoy finding the limits of our knowledge because it reminds me of how much mystery there still is in this universe look the scientific frontier is still very much alive that's why i'm excited about the sponsor of today's video curiosity stream curiosity stream is a streaming service for nerds like me they have thousands of documentaries looking to show the beauty of our universe as well as the mysteries that still exist my favorite documentary right now is the secrets of quantum physics because as soon as you realize the importance of physics and chemistry when it comes to biology nutrition and so on you are on the track to answering a ton of questions you may 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be found in higher densities in the periphery of the body in fact we used to think they only were in the periphery of the body and we used to think that cb1 receptors were only ever in the brain but we now know that cb2 receptors are also going to be in the brain and cb1 receptors are going to be found in other locations again though it comes down to differing densities now cb2 receptors are going to be found primarily in lymphatic tissues and immune type tissues so you find it in the spleen for instance the spleen is essentially a giant lymph node that stores blood in the upper left of your abdomen you're also going to find cb2 receptors in your tonsils which are going to be again lymphatic tissues in your nasal and oral cavities that it's there to help filter potential pathogens and toxins from getting deeper in your body but you also find cb2 receptors in both the male and female reproductive tissues you're going to find cb2 receptors on the testes and you're going to find them in the uterus for example but the thing that or the place i should say that you find them the most is going to be on the immune cells themselves and you're going to find them in their highest expression on a cell called the b cell but you're also going to find them on t cells and monocytes and neutrophils it's important to understand the role that these immune cells have in your body because they are going to be the regulators of inflammation in fact when you bind a cannabinoid to a cb2 receptor that can help modulate how much inflammation is occurring in the body that is a very very cool thing when it comes to the cannabinoids that are binding to these cannabinoid receptors there are two overarching types you have what are called exocannabinoids and then you have endocannabinoids so exo are going to be produced outside of the body and you need to consume them for them to have any kind of effect well endocannabinoids are literally produced by your body in fact they're produced by the cells that we were just talking about so they're going to be much more involved with your day-to-day activities than an exocannabinoid would now there are multiple different types of endocannabinoids but we're going to focus our attention on two of them because they are by far the most well studied and that is going to be two arachiodonal glycerol also known as 2ag and then arachiodonal ethanolamide also known as anandamide now that's a mouthful to say so i'm probably just going to say 2ag and an endomite from now on but these are going to be produced by neurons by the immune cells by these tissues and they are going to start modulating the the tissues and surrounding area that we just discussed so if it's in the nervous system they would be modulating how much dopamine how much serotonin how much glutamate is being secreted and then if they're in the immune system they can be modulating things such as inflammation so these are going to be playing a really important role with your day-to-day activities and right this moment they're being secreted produced and secreted in varying amounts depending upon their demand when it comes to the exocannabinoids there are again going to be two main types we have phytocannabinoids which just means they come from a plant and then synthetic cannabinoids which means they're going to be made in a laboratory so those are going to be things like spice or k2 if you've ever heard of those and despite being made in a laboratory they're still going to bind to those cb receptors and cause all the effects that we've discussed but the phytocannabinoids are the reason why you probably clicked on this video because that's the one that everyone knows this is going to be thc and cbd and many many others although thc and cbd are going to again be the most well studied now thc is primarily going to bind to cb1 receptors although it will also bind to cb2 receptors but that means it's going to have a high affinity for the brain because again cb1 receptors are in their highest density in the brain and then they're in an even higher density in say like the prefrontal cortex than they would be in the cerebellum which would mean consuming um the phytocannabinoid thc is going to affect this area and so then you just have to start filling in the blank which areas are it affecting is it affecting the hippocampus or if again if it's if it's affecting the prefrontal cortex if it's affecting this area here that's more rational decision making if it's affecting this area over here it might be affecting more of your morality and empathy so it's fascinating because when it comes to the endocannabinoids those are going to be secreted in much less quantities and it's not like you're getting this massive dose right it's not at one point in time all of a sudden it's like boom all of a sudden i'm getting a bunch of 2ag or an endamide instead they're they're happening in the right proper amounts but if you're consuming thc and from some phytocannabinoid then you're going to get a massive quantity of it now the other thing to take note of though is that cbd is actually a non-psychoactive cannabinoid and that's because it doesn't bind to cb1 or cb2 it's going to be binding to some of the other receptors and proteins that i mentioned existed but we're not really going into detail but what is fascinating is you're seeing a lot of those uh the cbd is going to places like the immune system it's helping with inflammation it's helping with a lot of these you know i guess you could say medicinal properties that people are really interested in which is exactly why you're seeing cbd oils or cbd products i should say just ha all over the place and that's because it's people are really interested to see how medicinal cbd can be especially considering that it's non-psychoactive because again it's not binding to the receptors the cb1 or cb2 receptors which means it's not really going to be affecting the brain so what is it that exactly creates that characteristic high that we all know when people consume phytocannabinoids in the form of cannabis well that's actually a little more difficult to answer than you may think because it's not as simple as to say in the presence of thc you're going to then become high because what's going to happen is thc is not the only cannabinoid that's going to be competing for those receptors you're also going to have 2ag you're going to have an endamide and what will happen is as they're binding to the receptors there's going to be kind of like this up and down effect i guess you could think about it it's like this because it's really this agonism and antagonism of the receptors and how that gets perceived when you have this happening all over the body because you're having it happen in the brain right you're having to have in this area in this area in this area in this area but it's also happening in the periphery of the body and so depending on how the endocannabinoids and the exocannabinoids are interacting with the specific cells that they're binding to that's where you're going to start getting different types of highs and you may have heard of like more of a body high versus more of a mental high that's exactly what we're talking about here but at the same time it's not like we know exactly how that high is going to manifest every single time it's going to be subtly different and that's just going to show the complexity of this situation the dance between the endocannabinoids and those exocannabinoids the endocannabinoid system is absolutely fascinating to me and that's because you know now that it's starting to shift into more of the mainstream and you're seeing it legalized at least here in the united states medicinally all over the place and even recreationally in several states it's cool to see that because that means you can start doing more robust and rigorous scientific research and medical research on it and to me that is where i get most excited especially when it comes to treating psychiatric disorders especially like ptsd really hits home to me as a veteran of the united states military i'm really excited to see where things are trending with cannabis research but i also you know i can't help but you know feel like we can't oversell things either especially when it comes to cbd you know cbd has some real amazing potential but it's hard to really know and respect that when you're seeing cbd items being sold literally everywhere and people are just stamping cbd on anything they can and they're you know it has a real snake oil feel to it when it comes to me and that's not cbd as much as it's just the products that people are doing so i really i hope we're able to find this balance where we can find out what it's really capable of without overselling it because so far what we've seen with what thc specifically has been able to do and hopefully cbd it's exciting it's super exciting especially when it comes to the non-addictive properties of it but i hope you enjoyed this video and be sure to go ahead and find the link in the description below for curiosity stream again we want to thank them for sponsoring this video uh seriously i love their documentaries it's one of my favorite ways to uh wind down at the end of the day but thanks again for watching this video and i will see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Institute of Human Anatomy

Views: 9,806,587

Keywords: cannabis, thc, cbd, cannabinoids, what are cannabinoids, what does cannabis do to the body, is cannabis bad, is marijuana bad, what is cannabis, what is marijuana, what is thc, what is cbd, what does thc do to the brain, what does pot do to the brain, is pot bad for you, is marijuana bad for you, Endocannabinoid System, synthetic cannabinoids, phytocannabinoids, what are phytocannabinoids, how does thc work, how does pot work, how does cannabis work, how does marijuana work

Id: 2rUV4TAP46U

Length: 16min 43sec (1003 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 15 2022