A new study has stated that babies who have had an exposure to marijuana before birth have shown an improvement in their capacity to follow moving objects at the age of 4 years. But the researchers insist that, in no way does this confirm that marijuana is beneficial for the fetus during pregnancy.
Ben Thompson a part of the study and professor at University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada showed his surprise at this effect of marijuana, and has confirmed “It shows that marijuana and alcohol can have quite an impact on a fundamental aspect of the visual processing happening in our brains. But despite the apparently beneficial impact of marijuana on the development of the brain’s visual system, other research shows its use can actually impair the brain development of unborn children.”
A group of small 4 year old kids were selected for higher-level visual processing, by the researchers. A sample of small children was exposed to diverse combinations of alcohol, marijuana, nicotine and methyl amphetamines before they were born in the mother’s womb, and the results obtained from them were compared to those of the kids who were in the non-exposed control group.
A global perception test was utilized for kids to assess their dorsal pathway performance and the kids were asked to follow a group of dots moving together across a screen, while they also had to focus on some randomly moving dots on the screen. The number of these random dots kept on increasing till the children were unable to assess the movement of the dots clearly.
Marijuana exposure showed a better global motion perception in the children. Global motion perception is responsible for visual motor control and motion processing and “is a measure of processing within the brain’s dorsal visual pathway”. Whereas methamphetamine and nicotine did not affect vision, but alcohol had a bad effect in comparison with the results obtained from the children in the control group, said researchers.
Details of the study can be studied in the journal Scientific Reports.
