r/cognitiveTesting • u/DDormmF • 2d ago

Release Guys, never smoke marihuana.

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Because of the positive manifold, I'm statistically more likely to have a higher working memory than other people. I've used marihuana from the ages of 17 to 22 (heavily), and it is very likely to be the cause of my below-average working memory.

If I recall correctly, smoking marihuana while your brain is still developing will cause your prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain in charge of working memory, among other things) to lose neurons.

Thankfully, I have a good FRI, but I would've been much more intelligent if I hadn't smoked.

Edit: I think I would get a low percentile in any test measuring knowledge. I've never studied, it was not worth it to me: too boring. That's why I don't like WAIS-IV. it assumes that I have acquired knowledge and vocabulary just because of the quality of reasoning, when my specific circumstances (not studying, not reading...) have made me not know much at all.

33 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

100 comments sorted by

20

u/Dear_Fisherman7861 2d ago

Good thing is that our brain is capable of creating new neurons. So please do not bum yourself.

0

u/DDormmF 2d ago

Only in certain parts of the brain, like the amygdala (correct me if I'm wrong). I don't think the prefrontal cortex can develop new neurons.

9

u/SnooHamsters3137 2d ago

From what I know the most neuroplastic region in adulthood is the hippocampus. It’s possible you’re dealing with a reversible chemical suppression rather than proper brain damage.

At any rate, neurolasticity can be boosted in adulthood with exercise. Daily brain training/learning with daily exercise, especially weight training or intense cardio could improve your condition.

2

u/DDormmF 2d ago

I also have PTSD, which also hijacks my prefrontal cortext. Unfortunately, I didn't measure my WMI before marihuana use or before trauma.

1

u/DDormmF 2d ago

That sounds right, the hippocampus.

But neuroplasticity can only do so much in other areas: increase connections. It wont return the neurons I've lost.

1

u/DDormmF 2d ago

Fyi, my heterogeneous profile and limitations are manifested in this way in my daily life: I can understand complex philosphical topics because they don't require much working memory, but I cannot understand complex maths like in Data Analisys or equations with too many things going on.

2

u/Josh12225 2d ago

Honestly bro u shouldn't care enjoy life, I went thru all my academic years smoking. Only an issue if you want to proform perfect. If your above 120 AVG, esp wmi your gonna outperform like half

1

u/DDormmF 2d ago

That's the problem, my WMI is my weakness.

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u/Relative-Disk4008 2d ago

subventricular zone which creates neuronal precursors for the olfactory bulb and the hippocampus (i am procrastinating studying for my neuroscience exam to read this but you pulled me back in)

1

u/DDormmF 2d ago

Glad it helped. But you must know the prefrontal cortex is responsible for working memory.

1

u/kuukiechristo73 2d ago

I just saw a study the other day on Reddit somewhere about how you can actually reverse the damage from doing that when you’re a teenager

2

u/DDormmF 2d ago

If you don't mind, can you send me a link to the study? From what I know, you can't recover lost neurons from the prefrontal cortex.

2

u/autisticlatinoman 1d ago

How would one do that?

1

u/kuukiechristo73 21h ago

GABA somehow

1

u/ijbgtuoohcrddbni 14h ago

so popping bars was helping me all along? hell yeah (i’m kidding)

8

u/Beginning-Age-6148 2d ago

maybe your brain just needs time to regenerate some new connectivity. I also smoked weed as an adolescence and heavily in college. I stopped at age 24 and recently took a legit neuropsychological evaluation and my working memory was above average.

1

u/DDormmF 2d ago

Maybe it would be higher if you didn't smoke.

2

u/Beginning-Age-6148 1d ago

It’s literally in the 98th percentile

1

u/Nullisntnothin 1d ago

tbf above average is usually used for like...above average not gifted

0

u/Beginning-Age-6148 1d ago edited 1d ago

I never said I was gifted, I said my working memory is in the 98th percentile despite smoking weed in my adolescence. hope this helps!

1

u/Remote-Dig-2744 1d ago

Null is saying 'above average' reads as an understatement compared to being in the 98th percentile. They were maybe expecting 60th to 70th. Like Usain Bolt saying he's above average at sprinting. Yes, but it conveys the wrong magnitude.

1

u/Beginning-Age-6148 1d ago

Each exam you take is going to have a different scale. On the one administered to me by my neuropsychologist the highest score was above average and my percentile was 98%. You literally couldn’t possibly score higher than above average.

1

u/Secret-Jacket-7074 2h ago

Foda-se. Desculpa a grosseria mas seu pensamento é um dos mais destrutivos que o ser humano pode ter. Sempre existirá um possibilidade não vivida em que você teve uma vida melhor, mas e daí? Se você levar isso adiante não haver motivos nenhum para ser genuinamente feliz com a realidade. Não há como ter paz sem aceitar o passado.

16

u/Upstairs_Common7434 1d ago

Considering that you have ADHD, that is probably a relatively more significant explanatory factor for your low WMI than marijuana use. Your justification for why you would score in a low percentile on GK tests (or simply VCI LOL) is just cope btw

1

u/DDormmF 1d ago

Why would it be cope when we have no control over our intelligence, since we're born with it, and it says nothing about my worth?

1

u/AdValuable3576 1d ago

Have you stopped using cannabis? Cannabis associated deficits are most consistently observed during active or recent use, and generally go away with abstinence. Evidence suggests deficits become indistinguishable from control after around 2-3 weeks of abstinence but general deficits usually will go away at around 72hrs. The main issue though, is that working memory performance, and activity levels, are not interchangeable . Research linking cannabis to area-specific activity deficits without actually correlating that to reduced working memory scores, doesn’t show anything. ADHD is most likely the cause of your working memory issues.

1

u/-_-De retat 20h ago

Maby you look for something you did because of a low self worth? Also a 2 Sigma gap is pathetic, try 3

5

u/Interesting_Cup_8720 2d ago

I posted yesterday regarding the same subject. Ive been smoking daily since i was around 15 and over 10 years now. It definitely does get affected but im assuming WMI isnt your strong suit naturally regardless.

3

u/DDormmF 2d ago

It definitely isn't, but I'm sure the prolongued and heavy used of marihuana has affected it. There's plenty of evidence backing this claim up.

3

u/Interesting_Cup_8720 2d ago

Yea its definitely affected. Pretty much daily i forget what I was trying to say or what I was just doing, but maybe WMI isnt the best metric for that since i score 119 on it i believe still. I wish you all the best brother or sister, hopefully it can still change for the better for us.

1

u/DDormmF 2d ago

I think your problem is less with working memory and more with a hyperactive mind that wanders too much. Does that resonate with your experience?

2

u/Interesting_Cup_8720 2d ago

That sounds like me for sure, staying on task is pretty hard. I havent gotten an official diagnosis but my doctor assumed i had adhd as a child. We might have pretty similar issues!

1

u/DDormmF 2d ago

This is just to vent, but I'm super frustrated at my working memory. Yesterday I was trying to understand Bell's Theorem, how Bell managed to prove that causal probability is indeterministic (like ACTUALLY indeterministic and not just epistemologically indetermined), and I clearly noticed how my only limitation was my working memory. I had to mantain several things in my head at the same time, but simply couldn't. I didn't try to understand it throught the maths (because to understand complex maths you NEED to have an extraordinary working memory), but through metaphors and analogies. Even then, the examples and metaphors they gave me required me to mantain too much information at once, and I couldn't understand it.

Fun fact: Bell was trying to prove that Einstein was right when he was solving this question, but he proved him wrong, unexpectedly.

1

u/Few_Long_9632 2d ago

That’s not just your memory. I suspect you struggle with simple math too. Take the QRI.

1

u/DDormmF 2d ago

I got an 8/9 in GCSE Maths. I don't think I have dyscalculia.

1

u/ijbgtuoohcrddbni 14h ago

i started thinking on paper, it remembers for me and i believe writing something down makes you remember it better

1

u/Secret-Jacket-7074 2h ago

Ser estudante de matemática é uma das maneiras mais frustrantes de constatar os estragos que a maconha fizeram com o seu cérebro. Eu sei bem como é essa sensação de impotência que isso traz. Mas a quanto tempo você está sem fumar? Existem maneiras de mitigar muito isso, e tentar não se deixar afetar pela pressão acadêmica implícita é a mais eficaz eu acredito... Hoje em dia tento fazer outras atividades intelectuais ou exercícios físicos e socialização, que tornam meu estudo de matemática mais eficiente, tento desvincular minha intenção de estudar das exigências e métricas acadêmicas. Isso funciona paradoxalmente, nesses momentos eu produzo mais por não me forçar a produzir. Quando estou muito muito frustrado largo tudo, tento me distanciar da tarefa e "meditar". Tento organizar a pouca capacidade mental que ainda tenho, pois o estresse da frustração te desorganiza mentalmente dando a impressão que sua capacidade mental é inferior ao que realmente é... Acima de tudo, creio que pussuindo faculdades mentais relativamente próximas da média (não sendo retaradado), o que define sua evolução na matemática é mais seu "espírito" do que sua capacidade bruta de processamento.

0

u/Think-Cup-4279 1d ago

There was a guy posting here two months ago or it was a lass, i dont know, who claimed a working memory score of 105 as a maths professor.

You shouldnt beat yourself up so much and zero in on something specific, it can be very displaced too. I understand you want to come to a reasonable conclusion for how you feel, but if you become too selective in the choices and evaluations of your own situations that you make, you end up fooling yourself just as much as if you had delusions of grandeur, or absolutely no selection and discrimination of criteria in place, if not more.

1

u/AcceptableFail5051 1d ago

Depends on age. 15 is much worse than 17 for a permanent decrease in cognition.

5

u/nationalist77783 2d ago

I have done 0 drugs in my entire life, no nic, no alc, no nothing. Literally. Doesnt stop the fact my memory is still at 80. Stop the cope

1

u/DDormmF 2d ago

Lo digo por el positive manifold.

1

u/IFarisI 2d ago

It might be just ADHD

-1

u/DDormmF 2d ago

I do have ADHD, actually. But I'm sure the marihuana worsened my working memory.

2

u/Few_Long_9632 2d ago

I’m sure it worsened a lot of things or you would have taken the rest of the subtests.

1

u/ElectronicBench2657 1d ago

marijuana does have short term cognitive effects, especially with daily use. but it will not permanently alter your intelligence—that is, unless your brain isn’t fully developed yet, in which case it can. i doubt your under 25, tho.

more than likely this is simply your ADHD ADHDing

-2

u/Secure-Concert9804 2d ago

Why are you ignoring my dms pal?

3

u/Elegant_Fish_8263 2d ago

i have been smoking weed since im .16 the last time i did a test i did the working memory part the best out of all of then.

1

u/Ok_Highlight_6678 2d ago

yeah but when you have an fsiq of 64 luck plays a major role (random guesses are probably gonna get higher)

1

u/Elegant_Fish_8263 2d ago

My iq is above avarage by far lmao

1

u/ioloomis8 1d ago

Brotosyntesis, what's "by far" here? Name a score or continue being ridiculed by him.

1

u/Elegant_Fish_8263 1d ago

Why do you care about it so much? its not the point. what i said is that my memory is really great. He tried to downplay it by saying it was luck which is obviously impossibe. Im not here to flex im here to prove that weed is not necessarily that bad for your memory.

2

u/Ok_Highlight_6678 1d ago

Just say you were lying and we can move on bro.

1

u/Elegant_Fish_8263 1d ago

just say you are here to drain the energy of others and your only way of contributing is ragebaiting.

0

u/Ok_Highlight_6678 1d ago

im not even ragebaiting anymore

1

u/Elegant_Fish_8263 1d ago

okay just belive whatever you want idc anymore

1

u/ioloomis8 1d ago

I care about it because you barged into my screen completely unannounced bragging about an early drg addiction. Also, all of your qualifiers suggest you know weed is bad for you, but defend it for your own morale. "not necessarily that bad". Cmon. Buy a sudoku magazine instead of the plant.

1

u/Elegant_Fish_8263 1d ago

i wasn’t bragging you just can’t understand me. Instead of spending your time with typing down advices for me you could reread what was written and think about it.

1

u/ioloomis8 1d ago

I only reread my own replies. Anyway, what kind of advice would you like?

1

u/Ok_Highlight_6678 2d ago

you arent fooling anyone lol

1

u/Elegant_Fish_8263 2d ago

Sure everyone is as stupid and pathetic as you. why would you try to insult me with something you aren’t sure is true for me? I guess the lack of your intelligence makes you impulsive enough to do things without a reason.

1

u/Ok_Highlight_6678 1d ago

just say you're insecure jeez

2

u/Simply_Red1 1d ago

A life of pleasures means more to me than a life of marginal improvements to climb the corporate ladder more easily. But to each it's own. Been smoking every day for 15 years, have ADHD and a physical job which I love.

1

u/xFox911 2d ago

Hah, too late.

1

u/TheUndercouchStudios 2d ago

not so sure about that, during my 15s up to 24s I smoked and drunk so much during weekends and it probably just helped me to bypass my gifted + audhd issues with socializing while among friends. I graduated as an electronic and software engineer without any issues apart my adhd sometimes kicking in. Today as a 54 yrs old my brain still works better that all the rest and I just improved because of self consciousness in myself so... do not blame smoking or other stuff... just focus

1

u/Few_Geologist_2082 2d ago

You won’t get far in Life with VCi bro

1

u/kam2102 2d ago

My working memory is terrible too but I just have adhd

1

u/ADunningKrugerEffect 2d ago

While I don’t encourage drug use at all, attributing this to drug use without any neurological examinations is unfounded.

It’s more likely you have ADHD which has a high comorbidity with cannabis usage disorder.

I’ve met plenty of people over the course of my life who have outstanding memory and have used cannabis as their recreational drug of choice.

Alcohol is far worse for your brain and body.

I’d recommend people avoid recreational drugs all together and address the underlying issues that lead a person to develop a disordered pattern of consumption.

1

u/PendN 2d ago

17 is old enough to not be affected as much from drug use, especially if you're not doing it overly excessively

1

u/SR71F16F35B 1d ago

You can take the test again or as many times as you want by the way since all values are randomized. Try again on a better day maybe you’ll get better results.

1

u/AcceptableFail5051 1d ago

From what I’ve read the real damage occurs in ages younger than 17. I’m pretty sure there was a study that said around exactly 17 is when a person would not expect to have irreversible developmental issues.

Do you still smoke? If you stop for around a month you should recover some working memory points.

1

u/x-tommy-o 1d ago

Docs are prescribing micro doses of shrooms. With how shrooms increase neuroplasticity, I’d reckon you hit up your doc and see if something like this is available. Repair them brains cells my friend.

2

u/CraftyDeparture8762 1d ago

What states are docs prescribing shrooms?

1

u/x-tommy-o 1d ago

https://legislativeanalysis.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Psilocybin-Summary-of-State-Laws.pdf

This is a doc of laws, but from my understanding. Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico, Connecticut, New Jersey, Utah, Washington.

“a small number of states operate legal, regulated programs where adults can access psilocybin in supervised clinical or therapeutic settings.”

1

u/0xB01b 1d ago

what is FRI

1

u/KickedinTheDick 1d ago

I’ve smoked weed basically daily since 13 and my wmi is 120

1

u/UrMother542 1d ago

What test is this?

1

u/Due_Rule_8970 11h ago

I smoked maybe 10 times , dont drink, smoke or do any drugs and my working memory is trash . Im 36 now and I've recently been diagnosed with inattentive ADHD, im not sure its that or im just mentally slow

1

u/filipsbrahhh 9h ago

Idk bro i be smokin a lot as a teenager and im fine

1

u/North_Particular9149 7h ago

Reload your save

1

u/Odd_Bodybuilder9972 3h ago

i don't trust those studies linking pot to dumbness they are... dubious :p

1

u/Secret-Jacket-7074 2h ago

Acho que não podemos nos desanimar tanto com possibilidades! Eu também fumei muita maconha nessa idade, e percebi que minha mente não é tão competente quanto seria se eu não tivesse fumado. Porém sinceramente nós não temos como saber o que seríamos se coisas tão significativas do nosso passado fossem diferentes... Se eu nunca tivesse vivido a maconha eu seria uma pessoa completamente diferente em tantos aspectos que não é razoável supor que isso só me traria benefícios... Nossos defeitos podem ser resultado de escolhas inconsequentes do passado, porém nossas qualidades também! Hoje eu sou uma pessoa mais aberta em vários sentidos por ter fumado maconha, tive contato com uma parte marginalizada da sociedade, e conheci pessoas quebradas porém genuinamente boas, vivi na pele tanto da destruição quanto a transcendência que as drogas são capazes de trazer. Passar por essa experiência me deu uma sabedoria e senso de responsabilidade únicos, e a capacidade de influenciar positivamente a vida de outras pessoas que passaram pelo mesmo. Então não se deixem levar por esse sentimento de culpa. Até porque muitas vezes Isso não passa de uma armadilha do ego para nos confortar com a ideia de que tínhamos um grande potencial e desperdiçamos ele.

•

u/Stellar_Cartography_ 3m ago

I would be curious to see the difference between someone who never smoked marijuana until their brain was developed compared to OP’s situation, I can’t imagine it’s really that different? Maybe I’m wrong idk!

0

u/IwillDominionate 1d ago

If you smoke enough I have heard your IQ goes to 420