%0 Journal Article
%T Marijuana use among adolescents is associated with deleterious alterations in mature BDNF
%A Caroline Perez
%A Luis Espinoza
%A Maria Jose Miguez
%A Ralph Tarter
%A Wenyaw Chan
%J Archive of "AIMS Public Health".
%D 2019
%R 10.3934/publichealth.2019.1.4
%X With increases in marijuana use and legalization efforts, it is imperative to establish its impact on the developing brain. Therefore, we investigated whether exposure to marijuana alters brain derived neurotropic-factor (BDNF), given its critical role in brain development and plasticity. We then examined whether onset age of cannabis use was associated with more severe changes. A single site, cohort study following 500 urban healthy American adolescents. Changes in plasma m-BDNF levels were longitudinally assessed, and a multi-method approach was implemented to ascertain marijuana use. Multivariate and general linear model (GLM) regression modeling were utilized to test the main hypothesis, controlling for confounders
%K Marijuana
%K adolescent
%K Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF)
%K brain development
%K smoking
%U https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6433615/