in celebration of 420 we're gonna take a
look at the cadavers and see if we can
figure out what's going on
with some of the common side effects of
cannabis consumption such as
dry mouth red eyes and of course the
munchies
so let's do this
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first thing you need to understand is
that thc and cbd
are examples of what are called
cannabinoids or is it
cannabinoids i still don't know how to
properly say that but
regardless these cannabinoids are found
inside
of cannabis but there are over 100 known
cannabinoids
and thc and cbd are just two of them thc
being the psychoactive one cbd being the
non-psychoactive one
now you have to understand that these
cannabinoids are going to bind to
receptors on the outside of cells
called cannabinoid receptors and they
are part of this larger system
called the endocannabinoid system and
there's still so much we need to learn
about this endocannabinoid system it's
ridiculous
but what that means is when you consume
thc
or cannabis products it's not just going
to go to your brain it's going to start
interacting with the tissues
all over the body and one of the first
tissues it's going to interact with
is your heart so we have a heart here
and you're looking at an anterior view
this is going to be the bottom of the
heart this is the top of the heart
and you can also see that we've made
some incisions so we can see inside
of the heart itself but what's going to
happen
is thc is going to start accelerating
the heart rate
when you first consume it and as that
happens
you are going to get an increase in
blood pressure
so this blood vessel right here is the
ascending aorta this is the largest
blood vessel in the body i mean it's the
size of a garden hose it's ridiculous
but you're going to get an increase in
blood pressure but
after i don't know like 5 10 15 minutes
or so
the heart rate is actually going to
lower
and that is going to give you lower
blood pressure
and the thing is when you have lower
blood pressure that means less blood is
getting to certain areas of the body
and if that happens in the eyes well the
eyes have a ridiculous amount of these
cb receptors right these canada but
these cannabinoid receptors
but also the blood vessels inside of the
eyes also have a bunch of these
cannabinoid receptors on them so
thc will also bind to them and when you
have that lower blood pressure
what will happen is the capillaries are
going to start to dilate
by dilating more blood is able to get
inside
but what that also means is it starts to
kind of like pool
because you're actually because again
you have low blood pressure so as it's
pooling and there's more of it there
the eyes start to become red and that's
why you don't get these red eyes
right off the bat it's not like you take
your hit and then you know your eyes are
ridiculously red
it takes a little bit of time to
actually happen another common side
effect of cannabis use
is going to be dry mouth now in order to
understand that we got to figure out
well
what lubricates the mouth in the first
place so if we take a look at this
dissection here this is going to be a
little
strange and maybe a little difficult to
wrap your mind around but if i pull this
here
you're looking at a portion of the
tongue that's been cut
and we are now moving into the voice box
well
its real name is the larynx and just
below it
we have this purple gland here called
the thyroid
and then below that we have the trachea
or your windpipe
and then hiding behind it is this long
tube here known as
the esophagus and we can even see a
nerve dangling back here
but what we want to focus on is this
thing
right here so what i'm holding is a
salivary gland
specifically this is called the
submandibular salivary gland
and as its name suggests it's going to
produce
saliva so you actually have six total
salivary glands you have two by the ears
two right here around the jawline and
then two underneath your tongue
well what they do is they secrete saliva
into your oral cavity or your mouth and
saliva serves a variety of different
purposes
including lubrication but it also has
digestive enzymes
in there to help break down things like
starch but what you have to understand
is that this has a ton
of cannabinoid receptors on it so thc
will bind to the
the salivary gland and then down
regulate its production of saliva so as
you're not secreting saliva and if i
hopefully you can see this do my best
yeah you can see there's some ducts
there
so what'll happen is you're not actually
transporting saliva through those ducts
into the oral cavity and what you end up
with
is dry mouth so here's the thing we used
to think for a long time
that both dry mouth and red eyes were a
product of smoke itself
i mean that kind of makes sense if you
think about it the smoke is flowing up
and
floating up into the eyes it's going
throughout the mouth it's hot
it's dry that makes sense that that
would be the case but
once we started consuming cannabis
products that weren't smoke related so
like
edibles for example people were still
getting dry mouth and people were still
getting red eyes and that told us there
was something else at play here
there really is so much still to learn
about the endocannabinoid system but it
is cool to see
that it's not just about irritating it
with products like smoke
it's literally just the cannabinoids
themselves but
we now need to talk about the most
famous of probably all the side effects
and that's everyone's favorite the
munchies so you're looking at a bisected
head that's been cut in the mid-sagittal
plane
which allows us to see so many different
structures like the nasal septum
this really cool piece of tissue here
called the falx cerebri
the corpus callosum the brain stem and
the cerebellum back here is just
stunning to look at but we want to focus
right here
this area that's not really all that
noticeable that i'm tracing with my
probe
is what's called the hypothalamus
and this hypothalamus is extremely
important
because you can kind of think of it like
a thermostat
of sorts and what it's doing is it's
monitoring
many different areas of the body to make
sure they don't go
too like they're not functioning at a
too high of a level or too two lovable
levels
it's like it's literally bringing things
back into balance
now inside of the hypothalamus if we go
back here
inside of that hypothalamus are these
tiny little neurons and by timing i mean
microscopic so i can't show you
right here but what uh those neurons are
called
pomc neurons and pomc neurons
are responsible for feeling full
so when that neuron gets stimulated you
literally just go oh okay it's time to
stop eating
well here's the interesting part thc
binds to those cb receptors on
the pomc neurons activating it
you're like justin that doesn't make
sense you just told me
that if the neuron fires i feel full
and now you're telling me that when thc
binds to it it causes it to fire
doesn't that mean that you just feel
more full
well that's where things get even more
interesting because the thc
also goes inside of the neuron and it
binds to what's called
a mitochondria mitochondria are
ridiculously interesting and maybe we
have to do a video on those in the
future
but what ends up happening is you also
get endorphin creation
and when it's the combination of the
endorphins
and the firing of the pomc neuron some
weird strangeness occurs that we still
don't fully understand
and you get hungrier that's what's going
on with the munchies
is it's this strange combination that
we're not really fully
understanding now there's other things
at play here there's other hormones
involved
such as leptin and ghrelin those are the
hormones
of also feeling hungry and full so again
there's still more to figure out but
i mean that that's what's going on when
you're eating an entire bag of chips
the endocannabinoid system is honestly
just one of the most fascinating things
that i've ever come across and i'm
planning on doing an entire video
specifically on the endocannabinoid
system but i also want to do a lot more
well maybe not a lot more but some more
thc and cbd and cannabis related videos
because
at least here in the united states it's
becoming legalized
both medicinally and recreationally
pretty much all over the place
and that means people are going to be
consuming it at a higher rate and i want
to make sure that people are educated as
to what is going on to your with your
body
as you're consuming these products so
i'd be curious to see what you would
want
or you'd be interested in seeing
yourself so be sure to leave a comment
below saying hey
i'd like to see this or see that or give
me those ideas because
i need your ideas i need your help but
this is a really fun video to film i
hope every single one of you have a
great
420 and if you are one of those who's
partaking of cannabis products now you
know
what's going on with your red eyes your
dry mouth and why
exactly you can't stop demolishing that
entire bag
of chips but i'll see in the next video
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