Health committee  That's the age group that I was studying.

Health committee  The teenage brain is still developing the ability to make good decisions, and the prefrontal cortex is still myelinating. That means it's still optimizing. Even youth who aren't exposed to drugs may have trouble with decision-making because of this lack of development. What is often seen is that the limbic areas are more active than the prefrontal cortex even without the drugs.

Health committee  Impulsive behaviour, not looking at the consequences of actions.

Health committee  It makes people placid?

Health committee  Yes.

Health committee  Are you asking for the percentage of women who prenatally were using marijuana?

Health committee  When we do our brain imaging, typically we are doing group comparisons, or we even do a multiple regression, where we're looking at the correlation. When I say “significant”, I mean at a probability value of 0.05. With our multiple regression results, we're seeing that with more prenatal exposure or with more teenage use, you get significantly more brain activity.

Health committee  Yes.

Health committee  It perhaps is a little different in the neuroimaging world. It's hard to really give you an actual per cent.

Health committee  Thank you very much for inviting me today. I believe this is a very important endeavour, and I'm happy to be a part of it. I am an associate professor in the school of psychology at the University of Ottawa. I'm a neuro-imager and a neuroscientist. One avenue of research that I have pursued is how drugs of abuse impact the brain, specifically in youth, during executive functioning.