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Impaired error awareness and anterior cingulate cortex hypoactivity in chronic cannabis users

R. Hester, Liam Nestor, Hugh P Garavan

Neuropsychopharmacology June 24, 2009 DOI: 10.1038/npp.2009.67 (opens in new tab)

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Characteristics Observational case-control study with event-related fMRI Peer reviewed
Sample size 32
Population 16 active chronic cannabis users and 16 control participants
Measures Go/No-go response inhibition task
Topics Cannabis
Key findings Cannabis users' inhibitory control performance was equivalent to controls, but they showed a significant deficit in awareness of commission errors. This deficit was associated with hypoactivity in the ACC and right insula, and greater hypoactivity in both regions correlated significantly with error-awareness rates in the cannabis group but not controls.

Abstract

Drug abuse and other psychiatric conditions (eg, schizophrenia) have been associated with a diminished neural response to errors, particularly in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) thought critical to error processing. A diminished capacity for detecting errors has been linked to clinical symptoms including the loss of insight, delusions, and perseverative behavior. A total of 16 active chronic cannabis users and 16 control participants were administered a Go/No-go response inhibition task during event-related fMRI data collection. The task provides measures of inhibitory control and error awareness. Cannabis users’ inhibitory control performance was equivalent to that of the control group, but the former showed a significant deficit in awareness of commission errors. Cannabis users showed a diminished capacity for monitoring their behavior that was associated with hypoactivity in the ACC and right insula. In addition, increased levels of hypoactivity in both the ACC and right insula regions were significantly correlated with error-awareness rates in the cannabis group (but not controls). These difficulties are consistent with earlier reports of hypoactivity in the neural systems underlying cognitive control and the monitoring of interoceptive awareness in chronic drug users, and highlight the potential relationship between cognitive dysfunction and behavioral deficits that have the potential to contribute to the maintenance of drug abuse.

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

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