Female rats that inhaled vaporized cannabis daily for a month developed a blunted physiological response to stress, according to a new study by Washington State University researchers.
The WSU scientists’ work also establishes a direct, experimental relationship between chronic cannabis use and dampened stress reactivity.
“We were able to show pretty conclusively that chronic cannabis use can, in fact, significantly dampen stress reactivity in female rats,” said Carrie Cuttler, an assistant professor of psychology at WSU and co-author of the study. “Until now, no one has been able to establish whether this blunted stress response is the cause or the consequence of cannabis use.”
After the 30-day self-administration period, only the female rats that had access to the medium potency cannabis demonstrated a significantly muted physiological response. The rats that were given access to the medium potency cannabis also tended to respond more for the substance and had higher concentrations of the drug in their blood after the experiment which may explain why this group specifically demonstrated the blunted stress response.
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