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- 2019
Marijuana use among adolescents is associated with deleterious alterations in mature BDNFDOI: 10.3934/publichealth.2019.1.4 Keywords: Marijuana, adolescent, Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), brain development, smoking Abstract: 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
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