Dr. Matthew Hill

And that allows dopamine neurons to kind of move into a state where they're more prone to go into burst firing and have big dumps of dopamine. Whether or not that relates to, you know, the positive affect or the euphoria, I don't think anyone has... cleanly demonstrated that. I mean, obviously dopamine's very complicated in terms of its relation to endpoints and whether it's reward or motivation.

And that allows dopamine neurons to kind of move into a state where they're more prone to go into burst firing and have big dumps of dopamine. Whether or not that relates to, you know, the positive affect or the euphoria, I don't think anyone has... cleanly demonstrated that. I mean, obviously dopamine's very complicated in terms of its relation to endpoints and whether it's reward or motivation.

But cannabinoids definitely do have an influence on dopamine transmission. They just don't tend to do it directly. And I think that's this very bizarre and interesting component of cannabinoid signaling is why the brain would have evolved in a way to allow every other neurotransmitter system to be actively and directly regulated by endocannabinoids, but dopamine is kind of spared from this. So...

But cannabinoids definitely do have an influence on dopamine transmission. They just don't tend to do it directly. And I think that's this very bizarre and interesting component of cannabinoid signaling is why the brain would have evolved in a way to allow every other neurotransmitter system to be actively and directly regulated by endocannabinoids, but dopamine is kind of spared from this. So...

But cannabinoids definitely do have an influence on dopamine transmission. They just don't tend to do it directly. And I think that's this very bizarre and interesting component of cannabinoid signaling is why the brain would have evolved in a way to allow every other neurotransmitter system to be actively and directly regulated by endocannabinoids, but dopamine is kind of spared from this. So...

I don't know. I mean, obviously, you can always just theoretically guess as to why somebody would do that. I don't know what the reason for it would be, but it is something that has kind of intrigued a lot of people because every other system in the brain is so tightly controlled to some degree by endocannabinoids, and this one circuit is kind of free of it. So...

I don't know. I mean, obviously, you can always just theoretically guess as to why somebody would do that. I don't know what the reason for it would be, but it is something that has kind of intrigued a lot of people because every other system in the brain is so tightly controlled to some degree by endocannabinoids, and this one circuit is kind of free of it. So...

I don't know. I mean, obviously, you can always just theoretically guess as to why somebody would do that. I don't know what the reason for it would be, but it is something that has kind of intrigued a lot of people because every other system in the brain is so tightly controlled to some degree by endocannabinoids, and this one circuit is kind of free of it. So...

But yeah, so the main role of endocannabinoids is really to regulate plasticity or homeostasis, allow flexibility of circuits to either goose up their activity or ramp it down if they need to, depending on the environment, depending on the experience of the organism. So there's a lot of kind of roles that endocannabinoids play in that domain. But even within the endocannabinoids...

But yeah, so the main role of endocannabinoids is really to regulate plasticity or homeostasis, allow flexibility of circuits to either goose up their activity or ramp it down if they need to, depending on the environment, depending on the experience of the organism. So there's a lot of kind of roles that endocannabinoids play in that domain. But even within the endocannabinoids...

But yeah, so the main role of endocannabinoids is really to regulate plasticity or homeostasis, allow flexibility of circuits to either goose up their activity or ramp it down if they need to, depending on the environment, depending on the experience of the organism. So there's a lot of kind of roles that endocannabinoids play in that domain. But even within the endocannabinoids...

I mean, there's two primary endocannabinoids. And again, this is one of the weird things about how endocannabinoids work, because if you talk about things like serotonin or dopamine, you have a single molecule that gets released in the typical anterograde way, and it diversifies at the level of the receptor. So serotonin has like... I don't know, like 15 receptors or 20 or something. No.

I mean, there's two primary endocannabinoids. And again, this is one of the weird things about how endocannabinoids work, because if you talk about things like serotonin or dopamine, you have a single molecule that gets released in the typical anterograde way, and it diversifies at the level of the receptor. So serotonin has like... I don't know, like 15 receptors or 20 or something. No.

I mean, there's two primary endocannabinoids. And again, this is one of the weird things about how endocannabinoids work, because if you talk about things like serotonin or dopamine, you have a single molecule that gets released in the typical anterograde way, and it diversifies at the level of the receptor. So serotonin has like... I don't know, like 15 receptors or 20 or something. No.

Dopamine has at least five. And so the different actions that serotonin or dopamine will have is all driven by the diversification of the receptors. It's one molecule. Whereas cannabinoids are the reverse. Not only do they work backwards across the synapse and work in this retrograde fashion, but really you have one receptor that is regulated by two molecules.

Dopamine has at least five. And so the different actions that serotonin or dopamine will have is all driven by the diversification of the receptors. It's one molecule. Whereas cannabinoids are the reverse. Not only do they work backwards across the synapse and work in this retrograde fashion, but really you have one receptor that is regulated by two molecules.

Dopamine has at least five. And so the different actions that serotonin or dopamine will have is all driven by the diversification of the receptors. It's one molecule. Whereas cannabinoids are the reverse. Not only do they work backwards across the synapse and work in this retrograde fashion, but really you have one receptor that is regulated by two molecules.

So the diversification happens more at the level of the molecule than at the receptor, which is, again, very unique. And The two molecules that we know are kind of the bona fide endocannabinoids. There could be more. They're called anandamide, which is actually kind of a funny name because it comes from the Sanskrit word anand for bliss.

So the diversification happens more at the level of the molecule than at the receptor, which is, again, very unique. And The two molecules that we know are kind of the bona fide endocannabinoids. There could be more. They're called anandamide, which is actually kind of a funny name because it comes from the Sanskrit word anand for bliss.

So the diversification happens more at the level of the molecule than at the receptor, which is, again, very unique. And The two molecules that we know are kind of the bona fide endocannabinoids. There could be more. They're called anandamide, which is actually kind of a funny name because it comes from the Sanskrit word anand for bliss.