Skip to content

Please click the ACCESSIBILITY icon to change text sizes for reading

Home » Explaining Contemporary Patterns of Cannabis Teratology

Explaining Contemporary Patterns of Cannabis Teratology

From the Abstract

Cannabis has been shown to be teratogenic in cells, animals and humans. Particular targets of prenatal exposure include brain, heart and blood vessels and chromosomal segregation…

Studies in cells, together with the above mentioned epidemiology, implicate cannabidiol, cannabichromene, cannabidivarin and other cannabinoids in significant genotoxicity and/or epigenotoxicity. Notch signalling has recently been shown to be altered by cannabinoids, which is highly pertinent to morphogenesis of the neuraxis and cardiovasculature, and also to congenital and inheritable cancer induction. 

It is felt that subtle neurobehavioural psychosocial and educational deficits will likely be the most common expression of cannabinoid teratology at the population level. 

The far reaching implications of this wide spectrum of neuroteratological, pediatric cardiological and other defects and deficits should be carefully considered in increasingly liberal paradigms. Hence it is shown that the disparate presentations of cannabis teratology relate directly and closely to the distribution of CB1R’s across the developing embryo and account for the polymorphous clinical presentations.

Download PDF