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   From: froid@sane.org   
      
   Steve Cummings  wrote in   
   news:shlmfd$d0c$8@news.dns-netz.com:   
      
   > progressive parents who smoke pot raise little faggot boys who wear   
   > dresses and girls who think they have dicks.   
      
   Weill Cornell Medicine has been awarded a five-year, $11.6 million grant   
   from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) of the National   
   Institutes of Health to study the effects cannabis, including marijuana   
   and compounds derived from it, may have on the brains of those living with   
   HIV.   
      
   “We know that the virus may cause changes within the brain, but it’s not   
   clear yet how the use of cannabis might interact with the infection,” said   
   principal investigator Lishomwa Ndhlovu, a professor of immunology in   
   medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Weill Cornell Medicine.   
      
   Cannabis may exacerbate HIV’s effects on the brain, or it may protect   
   against them; researchers don’t know yet, he said. “This support from NIDA   
   will allow us to collect the data we need to explore this relationship,”   
   Ndhlovu said.   
      
   The project is the newest component of NIDA’s SCORCH program, which seeks   
   to investigate how substances that can lead to addiction may modify the   
   effects of HIV in the brain, at the level of individual cells. This   
   cannabis research, the second SCORCH project based at Weill Cornell   
   Medicine, is being led by Ndhlovu; Michael Corley, assistant professor of   
   immunology in medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases; and Dionna   
   Whitney Williams, assistant professor of molecular and comparative   
   pathobiology at Johns Hopkins University School Medicine.   
      
   An earlier project, begun in 2021, is mapping the effects of chronic   
   opioid exposure in the brain.   
      
   Advancements in treatment have turned HIV into a chronic condition.   
   Although those with the virus can now live longer, HIV may still cause   
   damage, including to the brain. Up to half of those living with HIV may   
   experience declines in cognitive function, particularly in working memory   
   and attention.   
      
   Studies have found that people living with HIV frequently use cannabis,   
   recreationally or to treat symptoms related to HIV. As a potentially   
   addictive substance, cannabis also alters the brain, and people with HIV   
   may be at risk for cannabis use disorder.   
      
   Cannabis may also offer benefits for those living with HIV. It has an   
   anti-inflammatory effect that researchers speculate could tamp down the   
   chronic, harmful inflammation caused by the virus. Researchers think this   
   inflammation contributes to the long-term health problems, including   
   cognitive deficits, that people living with HIV may experience.   
      
   “Findings from our lab and others demonstrate that inflammation can   
   influence cognition in people living with HIV,” Williams said, “and we’re   
   aiming to understand whether cannabis can mitigate those effects and how   
   it does this on a molecular level.”   
      
   To examine the interaction between cannabis and HIV, the research team   
   will focus on several brain regions, including the hippocampus, where new   
   neurons form, in a process critical to learning and memory. Using brain   
   tissue samples collected from human patients after death and from nonhuman   
   animal models, they intend to look at gene activity and the mechanisms   
   controlling it within individual cells.   
      
   “It’s unclear how different types of brain cells react to cannabis in the   
   context of HIV,” Corley said. “New single-cell technologies will allow us   
   to map these changes at a resolution high enough to examine the effects on   
   specific cell types.”   
      
   The information this project generates could, over the long term, boost   
   efforts to better prevent and treat HIV-related cognitive deficits and   
   cannabis use disorder, according to the researchers.   
      
   Robert O’Brien, assistant professor of immunology in medicine, and Dr.   
   Howard Fine, founding director of the Brain Tumor Center at NewYork-   
   Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center and associate director for   
   translational research at the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at   
   Weill Cornell Medicine, are also investigators on this project.   
      
   https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2023/05/grant-funds-study-cannabis-   
   effects-hiv-infected-brain-tissue   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)