Schizophrenia Research
December 1, 2006
Dagmar Koethe, Christoph W Gerth, Miriam A Neatby et al.
Recent data on alterations of the endogenous cannabinoid system in schizophrenia have raised the question of its functional role in this disease. The psychoactive compound of Cannabis sativa, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Delta9-THC), has been shown to induce psychotic symptoms, but it is unknown to what extend prodromal states of psychoses are reflected by these experimental approaches. This...
Neuroscience Letters
November 20, 2006
Duncan Ryan, Alison J Drysdale, Roger G Pertwee et al.
We have shown previously that the plant cannabinoid cannabidiol (CBD) elevates intracellular calcium levels in both cultured hippocampal neurones and glia. Here, we investigated whether the main psychotropic constituent of cannabis, Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) alone or in combination with other cannabis constituents can cause similar responses, and whether THC affects the responses...
Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology
November 2006
Jennifer T Sneider, Harrison G. Pope, Marisa M Silveri et al.
The quantitative measurement of cerebral perfusion is crucial for the study of both normal and impaired human brain function. Although cannabis is the most commonly abused illicit substance in the United States, its effects on cerebral blood volume (CBV) have not been fully examined. The objective of the present study was to examine differences in relative regional blood volume in focal regions...
American Journal of Psychiatry
October 2006
Patrick D. Skosnik, Giri P Krishnan, Erin E Aydt et al.
Cannabis use may produce neurophysiological disturbances similar to those observed in schizophrenia, particularly in relation to altered neural synchronization. Therefore, the current experiment examined the effect of cannabis use on EEG neural synchronization using the auditory steady-state evoked potential. Auditory steady-state evoked potentials were assessed using varying rates of...
Pot Politics
September 21, 2006
Elliot N. Dorff
Abstract: This chapter approaches the issue of marijuana use from a Jewish perspective. The Torah demands that Jews become “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” The Jewish tradition uses wine to sanctify holidays and marriages; it does not use marijuana for those purposes. Still, Judaism allows Jews to ingest many things that are not intrinsically holy as part of the effort to fulfill the...
Anthropology of Consciousness
September 1, 2006
Jörg Fachner
Cannabis is known to change auditory perception and music appreciation as many musicians and music listeners report in narratives, interviews and biographies. An ethnographic pre/post study was conducted in a habituated naturalistic setting, combining qualitative and quantitative methods with four single case studies. Physiological results were gained with a mobile bedside EEG imaging machine...
The British Journal of Psychiatry
August 1, 2006
Leanne M Hides, Sharon Dawe, David J. Kavanagh et al.
BackgroundCannabis use appears to exacerbate psychotic symptoms and increase risk of psychotic relapse. However, the relative contribution of cannabis use compared with other risk factors is unclear. The influence of psychotic symptoms on cannabis use has received little attention.AimsTo examine the influence of cannabis use on psychotic symptom relapse and the influence of psychotic symptom...
The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry
August 1, 2006
Wayne Hall, Louisa Degenhardt
Objective: To explore the implications for mental health services, for health education about the risks of cannabis use, and for public policy toward cannabis use of observational evidence that cannabis use is a contributory cause of psychosis. Method: Using comparative analyses of similar evidence for the harmful effects of alcohol, tobacco, and amphetamine use, we considered the relation...
The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry
August 1, 2006
Louisa Degenhardt, Wayne Hall
Objective: To assess whether cannabis use in adolescence and young adulthood is a contributory cause of schizophreniform psychosis in that it may precipitate psychosis in vulnerable individuals. Method: We reviewed longitudinal studies of adolescents and young adults that examined the relations between self-reported cannabis use and the risk of diagnosis with a psychosis or of reporting...
African Journal of Psychiatry
July 17, 2006
Johannes Lodewikus Roos, H.W. Pretorius, Maria Karayiorgou et al.
11 citations
Objective: An ongoing collaborative study between the Human Neurogenetic Laboratory of Rockefeller University, New York and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pretoria, has been taking place since 1997, to map genes for schizophrenia. Aspects of cannabis use/abuse will be reported.Method: The Diagnostic Interview for Genetic Studies [DIGS] is used for all diagnosis. A narrative...
Psychopharmacology
June 2006
Stephen A Varvel, J L Wiley, R Yang et al.
Interest persists in characterizing potential interactions between Delta(9)-tetrahydocannabinol (THC) and other marijuana constituents such as cannabidiol (CBD). Such interactions may have important implications for understanding the long-term health consequences of chronic marijuana use as well as for attempts to develop therapeutic uses for THC and other CB(1) agonists. We investigated...
Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria
June 1, 2006
A. Zuardi
Cannabis as a medicine was used before the Christian era in Asia, mainly in India. The introduction of cannabis in the Western medicine occurred in the midst of the 19th century, reaching the climax in the last decade of that century, with the availability and usage of cannabis extracts or tinctures. In the first decades of the 20th century, the Western medical use of cannabis significantly...
Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental
June 1, 2006
Sean P. Barrett, Christine Darredeau, Robert O. Pihl
276 citations
Abstract Simultaneous polysubstance use (SPU) is a common phenomenon, yet little is known about how various substances are used with one another. In the present study 149 drug‐using university students completed structured interviews about their use of various substances. For each substance ever used, participants provided details about the type, order and amount of all substances...
Annales pharmaceutiques francaises
May 2006
Christian Giroud, Marc Augsburger, Bernard Favrat et al.
Two retrospective epidemiologic studies have shown that cannabis is the main psychoactive substance detected in the blood of drivers suspected of driving under the influence of psychotropic drugs. An oral administration double-blind crossover study was carried out with eight healthy male subjects, aged 22 to 30 years, all occasional cannabis smokers. Three treatments and one placebo were...
Annales pharmaceutiques francaises
May 2006
J Costentin
During the last decades a new landscape of cannabis has been designed on account of: the increase in its use the greater youth of its users; the increase in the content of its main active constituent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and a lot of new epidemiological and neurobiological data. THC displays an exceptional lipophilicity, allowing its cerebral storage, leading to long lasting effects, by...
Brain
May 2006
L Chang, R Yakupov, C Cloak et al.
Attention and memory deficits have been reported in heavy marijuana users, but these effects may be reversible after prolonged abstinence. It remains unclear whether the reversibility of these cognitive deficits indicates that chronic marijuana use does not alter cortical networks, or that such changes occur but the brain adapts to the drug-induced changes. Blood oxygenation-level dependent...
Drug and Alcohol Review
May 1, 2006
Michael Lyvers
41 citations
The controversy over possible MDMA-induced serotonergic neurotoxicity in human recreational ecstasy users is examined critically in light of recent research findings. Although the designs of such studies have improved considerably since the 1990s, the evidence to date remains equivocal for a number of reasons, including (1) inconsistent findings on the existence and reversibility of persistent...
Das Gesundheitswesen
May 1, 2006
Holger Siemann, Michael Specka, Fabrizio Schifano et al.
10 citations
The German pages of the Internet were searched for the presence of the hallucinogenic herbal drug Salvia divinorum, which is not dealt with in current addiction medicine or psychiatric text books. The investigation is part of the EU sponsored project "Psychonaut" as preparatory work for the development of an Internet-based early warning system. The first 100 websites of the search using "Salvia...
Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research
April 1, 2006
Antônio Waldo Zuardi, José A. Crippa, Jaime E. C. Hallak et al.
411 citations
A high dose of delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the main Cannabis sativa (cannabis) component, induces anxiety and psychotic-like symptoms in healthy volunteers. These effects of delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol are significantly reduced by cannabidiol (CBD), a cannabis constituent which is devoid of the typical effects of the plant. This observation led us to suspect that CBD could have anxiolytic...
Journal of Psychopharmacology
March 30, 2006
Boris B. Quednow, Frank Jessen, Kai‐uwe Kühn et al.
105 citations
Chronic administration of the common club drug 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy) is associated with long-term depletion of serotonin (5-HT) and loss of 5-HT axons in the brains of rodents and non-human primates, and evidence suggests that recreational MDMA consumption may also affect the human serotonergic system. Moreover, it was consistently shown that abstinent MDMA users...