Additionally, 2016 figures from Statistics Canada show almost 17 per cent of women of childbearing age reported using cannabis in the previous year. As cannabis use becomes increasingly normalized, including among some pregnant women, a pharmacologist at the University of Saskatchewan is hoping to determine if that use will have any effect on the brains of developing babies. Related studies involving both rats, which were injected, and humans, who smoked weed, have been done. And one of the most important things about a medicine is that you know which populations it shouldn’t be used in,” Laprairie emphasizes in the statement. The hope is the resulting information will be of use for individuals, policymakers and health regions. “We’re developing many different cannabis-based medicines.
As cannabis use becomes increasingly normalized, including among some pregnant women, a pharmacologist at the University of Saskatchewan is hoping to determine if that use will have any effect on the brains of developing babies.
Robert Laprairie is getting the chance to find out after becoming one of 20 Canadian neuroscientists to receive a $100,000 grant as part of Brain Canada’s Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research Program, which is funded by Health Canada through the Canada Brain Research Fund.
Laprairie’s team—which also includes neuroscientist John Howland and Ph.D. students Ayat Zagzoog and Tallan Black—plan to use...
Read the full article @ The Growth Op