Psychopharmacology
October 17, 2026
Giada Lombardi, Grace Blest‐hopley, Martina Maria Tarantini et al.
RATIONALE: Regular cannabis use has been associated with alterations in reward-related neural processes, yet findings remain inconsistent and the relationship between neural activity and behavioural performance is not fully understood. OBJECTIVES: The present study aimed to characterise neural and behavioural correlates of reward processing in regular cannabis users (CU) compared with matched...
medRxiv Preprint Server
April 23, 2026
Giada Lombardi, Grace Blest‐hopley, Martina Maria Tarantini et al.
preprint
Regular cannabis use has been associated with alterations in reward-related neural processes, yet findings remain inconsistent and the relationship between neural activity and behavioural performance is not fully understood. The present study aimed to characterise neural and behavioural correlates of reward processing in regular cannabis users (CU) compared with matched non-users (NU) using the...
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
2019
Grace Blest‐hopley, Vincent Giampietro, Sagnik Bhattacharyya
HighlightsAdolescent abstinent cannabis users showed significantly greater activation in the dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices compared to controls.Adolescent users showed increased activation in regions involved in executive functioning, attentional control and the default mode network compared to non‐using controls.No significant group differences in...
Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology
December 2018
Marco Colizzi, Philip Mcguire, Vincent Giampietro et al.
Cannabis can induce transient psychotic and anxiety symptoms and long-lasting disorders. The acute psychoactive effects of its main active ingredient, (-)-trans-Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC), may be modulated by previous cannabis exposure. Secondary data analyses tested whether modest previous cannabis exposure modulated the acute effects of Δ9-THC on attentional salience and emotional...
European Neuropsychopharmacology
July 1, 2018
Marco Colizzi, P. McGuire, Vincent Giampietro et al.
Cannabis use has been associated with psychosis and cognitive dysfunction. Some evidence suggests that the acute behavioral and neurocognitive effects of the main active ingredient in cannabis, (-)-trans-Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (∆9-THC), might be modulated by previous cannabis exposure. However, this has not been investigated either using a control group of non-users, or following abstinence in...
Schizophrenia Bulletin
April 1, 2018
Grace Blest‐hopley, Aisling O'Neill, R. Wilson et al.
Abstract Background Long-term use of cannabis has long been associated with changes in cognition, including memory and learning, particularly verbal learning in man. However, evidence regarding the neurobiological underpinnings of impairments in memory following long-term cannabis use has not been consistent. Furthermore, to our knowledge none of the studies published to date have specifically...
Psychological Medicine
March 5, 2018
Sagnik Bhattacharyya, Thomas T. J. Sainsbury, Paul Allen et al.
16 citations
BACKGROUND: Cannabis and its main psychoactive ingredient δ-9-tetrahydrocannibidiol (THC) can induce transient psychotic symptoms in healthy individuals and exacerbate them in those with established psychosis. However, not everyone experience these effects, suggesting that certain individuals are particularly susceptible. The neural basis of this sensitivity to the psychotomimetic effects of...
Frontiers in Psychology
2016
Nick Medford, Mauricio Sierra, Argyris Stringaris et al.
This paper presents functional MRI work on emotional processing in depersonalization disorder (DPD). This relatively neglected disorder is hallmarked by a disturbing change in the quality of first-person experience, almost invariably encompassing a diminished sense of self and an alteration in emotional experience such that the sufferer feels less emotionally reactive, with emotions experienced...
European Neuropsychopharmacology
January 2015
Sagnik Bhattacharyya, Zerrin Atakan, Rocío Martín‐Santos et al.
Cannabis use can induce acute psychotic symptoms and increase the risk of schizophrenia. Impairments in inhibitory control and processing are known to occur both under the influence of cannabis and in schizophrenia. Whether cannabis-induced impairment in inhibitory processing is related to the acute induction of psychotic symptoms under its influence is unclear. We investigated the effects of...
International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis
March 24, 2012
Quinton Deeley, David A Oakley, Brian Toone et al.
149 citations
Debate regarding the neural basis of the hypnotic state continues, but a recent hypothesis suggests that it may produce alterations in the default mode network (DMN). DMN describes a network of brain regions more active during low-demand compared to high-demand task conditions and has been linked to processes such as task-independent thinking, episodic memory, semantic processing, and...
Archives of General Psychiatry
January 2012
Sagnik Bhattacharyya, José Alexandre S. Crippa, Paul Allen et al.
The aberrant processing of salience is thought to be a fundamental factor underlying psychosis. Cannabis can induce acute psychotic symptoms, and its chronic use may increase the risk of schizophrenia. We investigated whether its psychotic effects are mediated through an influence on attentional salience processing. To examine the effects of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) and cannabidiol...
Archives of General Psychiatry
April 1, 2009
Sagnik Bhattacharyya, Paolo Fusar‐poli, Stefan Borgwardt et al.
250 citations
CONTEXT: Cannabis sativa use can impair verbal learning, provoke acute psychosis, and increase the risk of schizophrenia. It is unclear where C. sativa acts in the human brain to modulate verbal learning and to induce psychotic symptoms. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the effects of 2 main psychoactive constituents of C. sativa, Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Delta9-THC) and cannabidiol, on regional...