The effects of cannabis on mind-wandering.
Adrian Berk Safati, Wisam Almohamad Alkheder, Cassandra Justine Lowe, Daniel Smilek
Heliyon February 21, 2025 DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2025.e42911 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Within-subjects ABA design Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Regular cannabis smokers |
| Duration | Three sessions; each session 30 minutes; second session immediately following cannabis use |
| Topics | Cannabis |
| Keywords | Executive control Sustained attention Thought control Mind-wandering Experience sampling |
| Key points | Cannabis use increased spontaneous mind-wandering and impaired regulation of deliberate mind-wandering and task performance. |
Abstract
To examine the effects of cannabis on mind-wandering, regular cannabis smokers of legally purchased pre-rolls took part in a three-session remote study. In each 30-min session participants completed three blocks of an attention task in which they pressed the spacebar in time with a metronome tone (the Metronome Response Task), and intermittently reported their levels of spontaneous and deliberate mind-wandering. Performance on the Metronome Response Task was indexed through response time variability, with greater response variability indicating poorer performance. Following an initial 'baseline' block, participants were instructed to mind-wander either 20 % or 80 % of the time in the second and third blocks (counterbalanced). Critically, the first and third sessions were scheduled on days of planned abstention while the second session immediately followed the (planned) use of cannabis (an ABA design). In the baseline blocks we found that cannabis use is associated with a large increase in spontaneous mind-wandering, a smaller increase in deliberate mind-wandering, and impaired task performance. When participants were instructed to mind-wander 20 % or 80 % of the time, cannabis use reduced instruction-related changes in deliberate mind-wandering and task performance, suggesting an impairment of the regulation of mind-wandering.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on cannabis, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smoked Cannabis' Psychomotor and Neurocognitive Effects in Occasional and Frequent Smokers Occasional (<2x/week) and frequent (≥4x/week) cannabis smokers | 2015 | Controlled within-subjects study | n = 25 |
| Dissociable effects of cannabis with and without cannabidiol on the human brain’s resting-state functional connectivity Healthy volunteers experienced with cannabis but not regular users | 2019 | Within-subjects experimental design | n = 17 |
| Which biological and self-report measures of cannabis use predict cannabis dependency and acute psychotic-like effects? Young cannabis users | 2018 | Observational study (naturalistic, within-subject counterbalanced design) | n = 410 |
| Cannabis Essential Oil: A Preliminary Study for the Evaluation of the Brain Effects Healthy volunteers | 2018 | Experimental study | n = 5 |
| Coming off cannabis: a cognitive and magnetic resonance imaging study in patients with multiple sclerosis Patients with multiple sclerosis who began using cannabis after disease onset, used it... | 2019 | Quasi-experimental study with odd-even allocation | n = 40 |
Citations in the library
Cites 9
- Experience sampling during fMRI reveals default network and executive system contributions to mind wandering. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 26, 2009
- Dissociable effects of cannabis with and without cannabidiol on the human brain’s resting-state functional connectivity Journal of Psychopharmacology April 23, 2019
- The altered state of consciousness induced by Δ9-THC. Consciousness and Cognition May 28, 2022
- Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) impairs visual working memory performance: a randomized crossover trial. Neuropsychopharmacology October 1, 2020
- Self-caught methodologies for measuring mind wandering with meta-awareness: A systematic review. Consciousness and Cognition February 2023
and 4 more in the library