High Before Hello: Cannabis and the Developing Brain

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🐹 What does prenatal cannabis exposure actually do to a developing brain? Cannabis use during pregnancy is becoming increasingly common, yet many questions remain about its effects on developing offspring. Sophia Rogers, a Ph.D. candidate in Biopsychology at UC Davis, wants to help answer them. In this talk, Sophia walks through what researchers have learned from both human studies and animal models, and why answering these questions is more complicated than it might seem. She shares findings from her own research using prairie voles, a uniquely social rodent model, to investigate how prenatal THC exposure shapes behavior and brain development later in life. Prairie voles are especially useful here. Their social bonding behavior closely mirrors aspects of human relationships, making them a powerful tool for studying developmental outcomes that are otherwise hard to observe. Whether you're curious about cannabis, pregnancy, or simply how scientists study tricky questions like this one, this talk will separate what we know from what we still have to discover. 🌿 📵 A No-Phone Lecture 📵 This event is a special one: we are asking attendees not to use their phones during the duration of the event (7-9pm). After you check in, we will ask you to turn your phone off and slip it into an envelope provided at the door. We won’t take your phone or lock it away, but the goal is to create a space where we can all be present together, listening and thinking without distractions. If you’d…