[QUOTE=Kazumi;44565627][editline]17th April 2014[/editline]
The had an equal sized control group for god's sake.[/QUOTE]
YOu and sindri should get a hotel room together, because you both think that "studying" statistics makes you an expert on everything.
[QUOTE=frozensoda;44565639]YOu and sindri should get a hotel room together, because you both think that "studying" statistics makes you an expert on everything.[/QUOTE]
If the textbooks he has read state that a sample size of 40 is fine then why does he have to be an expert? I think it's funny that you think your feelings about what determine an adequate sample size should trump the findings of actual experts.
[QUOTE=be;44565659]If the textbooks he has read state that a sample size of 40 is fine then why does he have to be an expert? I think it's funny that you think your feelings about what determine an adequate sample size should trump the findings of actual experts.[/QUOTE]
I didn't even imply that
[quote]
I'm currently studying statistics applied to science and psychology, and a sample of 40 is fine. 30 is actually the bare minimum in most cases, but that depends on the study. [B]In this case I would say that it paints a pretty good picture.[/B][/quote]
He's not in a position to be the guy who determines if this is a good sample size, and neither am I. The difference being I didn't claim it wasn't, you implied I did and now(like the rest of this thread so far) future posts are also going to assume I did based on your post. It's a huge mess of circular reference in here.
I never said it wasn't a statistical representation, What I said is that this is a small study which is a fact.
and still not one of you have actually seen the paper, so your argument based on this article is flawed to start with.
I'm thinking the best possible solution in judging Marijuana is by seeing if the positive effects outweigh the negative and vise versa. Maybe you could conduct a study based on a practical analysis by seeing what would happen if you were a long term smoker or one that does it on occasion. I think that would answer quite a lot and then we could move forward other than this backward and forward argument sprung in this topic.
My two cents, but still.
All I'm pointing out the fault with people that they only had a sample of 20, which is wrong. That is just stamping out misinformation. If you can't deal with that, fine. It's not my problem.
I'm definitely not saying that I'm an expert in statistics. From what little I've read I see no great faults in the way they operationalised these tests. From my understanding, the difference was still substantial enough for it to get recognised.
No, none of us have read the paper. Although I am a neuroscience major, and I actually made an effort to try and find the article on the databases I have access to. No success so far though, but I believe it is queued to be published very soon.
[QUOTE=Kazumi;44565850]All I'm pointing out the fault with people that they only had a sample of 20, which is wrong. That is just stamping out misinformation. If you can't deal with that, fine. It's not my problem.
I'm definitely not saying that I'm an expert in statistics. [B]From what little I've read I see no great faults in the way they operationalised these tests.[/B] From my understanding, the difference was still substantial enough for it to get recognised.
No, none of us have read the paper. Although I am a neuroscience major, and I actually made an effort to try and find the article on the databases I have access to. No success so far though, but I believe it is queued to be published very soon.[/QUOTE]
They measured the dosage in "joints" dude come on
and again, what exactly are you referencing? You have not seen the paper, so that means you are basing this on things said in this thread, and the article which is basically irrelevant since it doesn't have any of the actual data. [B]How do you know there's "no great faults" in the way they did it?[/B]
[QUOTE=frozensoda;44565868]They measured the dosage in "joints" dude come on[/QUOTE]
That's not really a standard of measurement, you see the potency of Marijuana varies a lot and it means nothing if they didn't measure it.
Another thing is the effects are different per individual, it's hard to actually generalize such studies.
The sections affected are the amygdala and primarily the (left) nucleus accumbens.
The amygdala is associated with memory formation on a emotional basis, and the nucleus accumbens is [b]already heavily linked to drug usage[/b]. From what I understand, reshaping of the amygdala would be more harmful, but the study specifically states the largest changes occured in the nucleus accumbens, which, once again, where much dopamine can be found after the usage of several different drugs. It reinforces pleasant, emotional activity, ie its the cause for the psychological addiction. Frequently users will undoubtedly see a change to their brain and memory formation. Short term memory does in fact go to shit for a lot of people who smoke often. Neither of these things directly effect your ability to think, only your ability to store information. If that comes as a surprise to people who smoke pot, then I think they're doing it wrong.
tl;dr: the harm to your brain is comparable (if not lesser than) the harmful effects of alcohol.
[QUOTE=Yuzing0;44566083]That's not really a standard of measurement, you see the potency of Marijuana varies a lot and it means nothing if they didn't measure it.
Another thing is the effects are different per individual, it's hard to actually generalize such studies.[/QUOTE]
I think you misunderstood, that's exactly what he's saying.
[QUOTE=frozensoda;44565868]They measured the dosage in "joints" dude come on
and again, what exactly are you referencing? You have not seen the paper, so that means you are basing this on things said in this thread, and the article which is basically irrelevant since it doesn't have any of the actual data. [B]How do you know there's "no great faults" in the way they did it?[/B][/QUOTE]
A joint can simply be a standard measure that is used. Like here in Sweden we use the term "standardglas" when measuring different kinds of alcohol in the same context.
Sure, I don't know. But neither do you. A nice dose of scepticism is healthy, but don't shut out information just because of the sake of it. Like we've been through before, none of us have read the article. But their findings make sense in neurological terms. I might not know much of the study, but I know my neuroscience (I hope).
I'm going to do a bit of speculation here, and this is a gross simplification.
They primarily studied the amygdala and nucleus accumbens, which both are part of the emotional regulatory systems that is often called the limbic brain. These parts do not have absolute functions that only deals with one thing, but the things they do have some level of interconnectedness. The NAcc is highly dopaminergic which makes sense since a lot of dopamine is released whenever we have cravings for something (chocolate or whatever). What is yet to be studied is how THC, or whatever substance they are measuring from the cannabis, affect the dopamine reuptake. Prolonged imbalance of this [B]will[/B] lead to a physiological change. This leads me to an interesting point regarding the test subjects. This snippet is taken from the Time article linked in the OP:
[quote]Each group consisted of nine males and 11 females. The pot users underwent a psychiatric interview to confirm that they were not heavy or dependent marijuana users.
“We looked specifically at people who have no adverse impacts from marijuana — no problems with work, school, the law, relationships, no addiction issues,”[/quote]
So these are people who have no obvious expressed psychological effects. The physical changes are still there (according to the article), and it could provide us insight with why some people develop certain adverse effects or why it might catalyse or trigger a psychosis in some. The amygdala is a good place to observe as well as it controls our fears. An overstimulated amygdala, depending on what network, can lead to excess fear responses. One example is PTSD, which we believe is a result of extremely high memory consolidation thanks to its connections to the hippocampus. In our context, it might explain the paranoid delusions some experiences.
Right. With all this said, I'm going to point out again that the psychological expressions of the neurophysical changes does not always manifest itself. But in those where it does, it can have dire consequences. And that is worth investigating.
This study is definitely on the right track. Whether they actually have found anything worthwhile we will have to wait until the article is out/found. But they are definitely in the right ballpark.
[editline]17th April 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Mobon1;44566105]The sections affected are the amygdala and primarily the (left) nucleus accumbens.
The amygdala is associated with memory formation on a emotional basis, and the nucleus accumbens is [b]already heavily linked to drug usage[/b]. From what I understand, reshaping of the amygdala would be more harmful, but the study specifically states the largest changes occured in the nucleus accumbens, which, once again, where much dopamine can be found after the usage of several different drugs. It reinforces pleasant, emotional activity, ie its the cause for the psychological addiction. Frequently users will undoubtedly see a change to their brain and memory formation. Short term memory does in fact go to shit for a lot of people who smoke often. Neither of these things directly effect your ability to think, only your ability to store information. If that comes as a surprise to people who smoke pot, then I think they're doing it wrong.
tl;dr: the harm to your brain is comparable (if not lesser than) the harmful effects of alcohol.[/QUOTE]
Yeah exactly. Just because there has been an observed change, doesn't mean that it will actually threaten the imminent legalization of it.
[QUOTE=Apache249;44557254]I have a friend who genuinely believes that Marijuana is good for his asthma. :suicide:[/QUOTE]
I had a friend who smoked fucking menthols for the same reason. :suicide:
Hey yo is there any actual brain scan images or anything from the study proving specific emotions were altered? Otherwise we could probably say first time hamburger users could have their brain damaged and certain emotions affected such as addiction. Because the hamburger taste leaves a memory in your brain and you could be addicted to the beefy goodness.
[QUOTE=frozensoda;44565673]I didn't even imply that
He's not in a position to be the guy who determines if this is a good sample size, and neither am I. The difference being I didn't claim it wasn't, you implied I did and now(like the rest of this thread so far) future posts are also going to assume I did based on your post. It's a huge mess of circular reference in here.
I never said it wasn't a statistical representation, What I said is that this is a small study which is a fact.
and still not one of you have actually seen the paper, so your argument based on this article is flawed to start with.[/QUOTE]
Kazumi never claimed that his expertise gives him the ability to say it is an adequate sample size, he said that what he has learned says that it is an adequate sample size and what he has learned through his studies comes from actual experts. I say that you think your feelings should override expert opinion because going against Kazumi's knowledge sourced from such experts just because you believe that 40 people is not enough are just your feelings not sourced by anything.
[QUOTE=be;44567174]Kazumi never claimed that his expertise gives him the ability to say it is an adequate sample size, he said that what he has learned says that it is an adequate sample size and what he has learned through his studies comes from actual experts. [B]I say that you think your feelings should override expert opinion because going against Kazumi's knowledge sourced from such experts just because you believe that 40 people is not enough are just your feelings not sourced by anything.[/B][/QUOTE]
did you even read the quote you quoted jesus christ be what the fuck is your problem with me?
let me requote the quote you quoted
[QUOTE=frozensoda;44565673]I didn't even imply that
He's not in a position to be the guy who determines if this is a good sample size, and neither am I. The difference being [B][I][U]I didn't claim it wasn't, you implied I did and now(like the rest of this thread so far) future posts are also going to assume I did based on your post. It's a huge mess of circular reference in here.[/U][/I][/B]
[B][U]I never said it wasn't a statistical representation, What I said is that this is a small study which is a fact.[/U][/B]
and still not one of you have actually seen the paper, so your argument based on this article is flawed to start with.[/QUOTE]
you literally did exactly what I said people would do, I can't imagine that you are doing this for any other reason than to troll me, and shit up the thread in general. Either you are the worst troll ever, or you can't read. If you simply can't read, I can PM you some resources to help you get there. It's nothing to be ashamed of, plenty of people are illiterate.
I'm pretty sure we all knew that some changes in brain happen when you smoke, this study alone doesn't mean shit. All this says is if you smoke weed your neural hubs get "damaged". Now there is not a single word about the after effects. How are the brain scans after 2 days of non-smoking? How about 2 months? How about 1 year? What if the person only smoked 0.5 grams during the week? Every link is saying that there needs to be further studying. I really would love to know what marijuana does to the brain but we just need to wait for more studies. We probably could have had this exact same result with any drug legal or illegal. The more you consume means more "damage".
i've always thought it fairly obvious that weed messes with you (although i really don't think the extent of the effects is enough to take into account re: legalization etc). and i'm not against studies finding this out, but i'm against people using this as part of their agenda and being all 'dumb stoners haha told you it fucked your brain' as though they really care about being healthy. how many studies have proven that sitting in front of a computer for extended periods of time is detrimental to your health? how many of the same people who proudly jack themselves off everytime something negative about marijuana is found eat unhealthily or don't exercise or something? like, yeah, it's bad for you, almost everything that's actually fun in life is bad for you so oh well
[QUOTE=frozensoda;44568301]did you even read the quote you quoted jesus christ be what the fuck is your problem with me?
let me requote the quote you quoted
you literally did exactly what I said people would do, I can't imagine that you are doing this for any other reason than to troll me, and shit up the thread in general. Either you are the worst troll ever, or you can't read. If you simply can't read, I can PM you some resources to help you get there. It's nothing to be ashamed of, plenty of people are illiterate.[/QUOTE]
So what am I supposed to think when you doubt his opinion and also just feel like pointing out that it's a small sample size, surely you must realize that that's quite misleading.
Sorry for misinterpreting you and missing what you wrote. Calm down, by the way, I don't have any issue with you.
frozendoda. I was replying to others in this thread who said that the sample was too small. You replied with this.
[QUOTE=frozensoda;44565639]YOu and sindri should get a hotel room together, because you both think that "studying" statistics makes you an expert on everything.[/QUOTE]
Which was uncalled for, and rather rude. This puts me in a rather awkward position where I it becomes difficult to share my knowledge and experience without sounding like a smug prick. Then you post this.
[QUOTE=frozensoda;44565673]He's not in a position to be the guy who determines if this is a good sample size, and neither am I.[/QUOTE]
In fact, [I]I am[/I] more qualified to pass that judgement than most people in this thread. We work similar examples every other week. This is definitely not saying that I've been the only one learning academic statistics. Sure, we don't have the exact numbers since we don't have the report in front of us (yet). I was commenting on people who said the sample was too small. I try to explain though it might be small, it's not "too" small, and get insulted in return.
i wouldn't say it's too small, i definitely know at least 40 people i'd say have definitely been affected by how much weed they smoke. i'll just say though, all these people are fun to hang out with, have steady (and in some cases quite well paying) jobs
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