Genetics is one of the coolest subjects, because when it comes down to it, this field explains some of the most detailed and intricate aspects of life on this planet. It’s the study of DNA, and generally speaking if you’re alive, you contain some DNA. DNA is organized into genes on chromosomes. Genes rule most of our traits and qualities. This includes your eye color, the texture of your hair, and apparently the way you respond to THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in weed.
In this study about genes, weed, and psychosis (which can be found at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0269881115609073), researchers studied what is called a “functional polymorphism”. Big words that mean something super small: there was a change in the DNA sequence of a gene, but this change didn’t make the gene non-functional. Even with this little change (polymorphism), the gene still more or less does its job (functional). The specific change this study focused on impacted the structure of the COMT protein (the real name is in the paper, and far longer than I personally think is necessary). COMT is an enzyme that helps our brains process dopamine, our happy signaling molecule!
They looked at two different types of COMT, since two different types exist thanks to that little change in its associated gene. They’re different by just one amino acid, and so the two types usually get denoted by that change as either COMT-Val or COMT-Met (again, more details about each amino acid and where they are in the paper). It’s been widely found that COMT-Met leads to more dopamine being released to neurotransmitters in your brain, which leads to an increase in your overall “happiness level”. It’s not by a whole lot (don’t worry COMT-Val people, you also get to be happy!), but just enough to be detectible.
In this paper, they looked at how these two types of COMT interacted with THC, and what they found was really cool! For starters: THC has both a cognitive (thinking) and psychotic (that high feeling) component. And turns out: what type of COMT you have doesn’t change the psychotic experience for weed-users. People with either type of COMT undergo pretty much the same psychotic experience as one another. It does make a difference on the cognitive component, though. Turns out, people with the COMT-Val protein end up being more effected by THC than people with the COMT-Met protein. This means that people with the COMT-Val protein tend to get more paranoid and forgetful when exposed to THC than people with the COMT-Met protein. Kind of crazy how something as small as one amino acid change can make such a difference on someones reaction to a drug!
This has lots of interesting applications. This could explain why some people recreationally use cannabis, and other people can’t stand the idea of using it recreationally. This could also have big implications as the world moves toward using cannabis for medical purposes. Maybe this gene is something to take into consideration before doctors think of prescribing medical cannabis to a patient.
Love how one little thing like a gene can make such a big difference on someones entire experience with drug exposure! I learned a lot today, and if you want to learn more, go read that full paper! Tons of cool facts and long science-y terms.
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