Marijuana users have “superior performance across multiple cognitive domains,” according to a new large-scale study funded by the U.S. federal government, with the effects of cannabis on cognition “presented concurrently across a range of brain systems.”
The research, published this month as a preprint by Nature Portfolio, analyzed brain imaging and cognitive data from 37,929 participants in the United Kingdom aged between 44 and 81 years old. The team found that cannabis consumers consistently outperformed non-users on a range of cognitive tests—suggesting that marijuana use may be linked to brain network patterns typically observed in younger individuals.
“These findings suggest that cannabis use may be associated with a deceleration of neural aging processes and the preservation of cognitive function in older adults,” the paper says.
“We speculate that cannabinoids and endocannabinoids may exert neuroprotective effects during aging by preserving an optimal balance between functional segregation and integration—an essential feature for maintaining specialized processing and efficient information transfer across brain networks,” wrote the researchers, who are from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University, Georgia State University, University of Colorado, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tri-Institutional Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science.
The authors of the study, which was supported by National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health grants, noted that as marijuana laws evolve and societal attitudes shift, researchers are uncovering a more complex picture of the drug’s effects, particularly among older adults.
Legalization, increased permissiveness, and recognition of therapeutic potential have contributed to a marked rise in marijuana consumption among the study population, the authors said. They pointed out that older adults now represent the fastest-growing group of cannabis users, increasingly using it to manage chronic physical and mental health conditions.
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