UK: Time drags for stoned rats

Thursday 12 Jun 2003
Cannabis makes rats lose track of time, robbing them of the ability to
discriminate between short and long periods.
This may help explain why human users may be less adept at tasks that
require sustained concentration.

"Any task that requires prolonged attention could be affected," says
Jonathon Crystal of the University of Georgia at Athens, who led the study.
Somebody driving after smoking marijuana, for example, could be capable of
executing the required manoeuvres, but could be prone to disastrous lapses
in concentration, he warns.

Cannabis is known to affect time perception in humans. "A minute can seem
like an hour," says Roger Pertwee, who studies the drug's effects at the
University of Aberdeen.

Crystal's team trained rats to distinguish between two-second and
eight-second bursts of sound. The rats had levers for "short" and "long",
and received food for pressing the right one.

The researchers then played bursts of intermediate length, to find the
"midpoint" which rats were equally likely to interpret as short or long.

Rats given a synthetic cannabinoid - an active component of marijuana -
flunked the test. Mistakes included interpreting a pulse as short even if
it was longer than the midpoint.

The team, whose study appears in Behavioural Brain Research, attributes the
inaccuracy to a general lack of concentration rather than an inability to
judge time at all, because the average midpoint did not change. "You have
to focus your attention or you lose track of time," Crystal explains.

^^^^^^^
THIS IS SUCH POO

 

i've felt as if time is going really slowly or really fast but never to the point where a minute feels like an hour! lol