According to a federally funded study published in the American Medical Association, brain processes such as working memory, reward processing and cognitive function are not impacted by using marijuana.

Working memory, which refers to the amount of information that is stored in the brain and used to execute cognitive tasks, has long been associated with being hindered by cannabis use. This makes the results of the study all the more surprising and could be the catalyst for a better understanding of how cannabis impacts brain health.

The study, which was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and published in the journal JAMA Network Open, focused primarily on moderate cannabis consumption for medical symptoms. To conduct the study, 57 recently certified medical patients were observed via functional magnetic resonance imaging as a means to monitor the brain during tasks. After one year of cannabis consumption, researchers scanned the brains of the study participants to see how brain function had changed.

“After year-long cannabis use for medical symptoms, we did not observe functional differences during working memory, reward processing or inhibitory control tasks, or an association of changes in cannabis use frequency with brain activation. Similarly, no significant changes in behavioral performance emerged,” the study found.