Katarina E. Leão, PhD, is an associate professor at the Brain Institute at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil. She is vice-coordinator of the postgraduate program in neuroscience (2013–2017 and 2023 – current) and spent 2020 as a visiting professor at the Karolinska Institute/Uppsala University, Sweden. She is head of the Hearing and Neuronal activity lab researching...
Objective: Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) have varying pharmacological actions with differential effects on acute and extended affective states, incuding anxiety. We aimed to study these effects on anxiety in legal market forms of cannabis. Method: This study makes use of a nonequivalent control group quasiexperimental design. Forty-two participants with anxiety symptions...
Aims: To conduct a single-arm open-label feasibility trial of the safety and tolerability of a full-spectrum cannabidiol (CBD)-dominant cannabis-based medicinal product for treating the symptoms of long COVID. Methods: The treatment phase ran for a total of 21 weeks, followed by ~3 weeks without the study drug. Participants received up to 3 mL of MediCabilis 5% CBD Oil (50 mg CBD/mL, <2 mg...
Abstract Background and aims Hallucinogens encompass a diverse range of compounds of increasing scientific and public interest. Risks associated with hallucinogen use are under‐researched and poorly understood. We aimed to compare the trends in hallucinogen‐associated health‐care use with alcohol‐ and cannabis‐associated health‐care use. Design, setting and cases We conducted an ecological...
Introduction: Cannabis is the most used illicit drug in the United States. With many states passing legislation to permit its recreational use, there is concern that cannabis use among adolescents could increase dramatically in the coming years. Historically, it has been difficult to model real-world cannabis use to investigate the causal relationship between cannabis use in adolescence and...
Background Natural Cannabis (NC) and Synthetic Cannabinoids (SCs) use can increase the risk and exacerbate the course of psychotic disorders. These could be influenced by the Aberrant Salience (AS) construct. It refers to an excess of attribution of meaning to stimuli that are otherwise regarded as neutral, thereby transform them into adverse, dangerous, or mysterious entities. This leads the...
Cannabis is used by one third of youth in Early Psychosis Intervention (EPI) programs and high dose consumption of the primary constituent Δ-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is associated with higher risk for relapse in this group. Cannabidiol (CBD) is a secondary cannabis constituent that may have antipsychotic properties, though its health risks are only beginning to be understood. Little is...
NeuropharmacologyJanuary 1, 2024Linyuan Shi, Shuo Kang, Chan Young Choi et al.
Significant exposure to alcohol or cannabis during adolescence can induce lasting disruptions of neuronal signaling in brain regions that are later to mature, such as the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Considerably less is known about the effects of alcohol and cannabis co-use, despite its common occurrence. Here, we used male and female Long-Evans rats to investigate the effects of...
Use of delta-8-THC ("delta-8") has proliferated after the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill. Yet, research on the mental health effects of this increasingly popular cannabinoid is scant. The current study sought to examine mental health correlates of delta-8 use frequency and motives, investigate whether delta-8 use motives predict use frequency, and compare use motives and problems between delta-8...
Cannabis is known to cause psychotic disorders, and the increasing use of cannabis constitutes an important health problem. Growing evidence that cannabis causes the development of psychosis has led to an increase in the number of studies in this field. This review aims to clarify the role of cannabis use in the development of psychosis, discuss the current literature about the underlying...
Cannabis use is consistently associated with both increased incidence of frank psychotic disorders and acute exacerbations of psychotic symptoms in healthy individuals and people with psychosis spectrum disorders. Although there is uncertainty around causality, cannabis use may be one of a few modifiable risk factors for conversion to psychotic disorders in individuals with Clinical High Risk...
Cannabis users present an important group for investigating putative mechanisms underlying psychosis, as cannabis-use is associated with an increased risk of psychosis. Recent work suggests that alterations in belief-updating under uncertainty underlie psychosis. We therefore compared belief updating under uncertainty between cannabis and non-cannabis users. 49 regular cannabis users and 52...
There are increasing reports of the misuse of prescription psychostimulants for cognitive enhancement together with recreational cannabis. This raises a concern that chronic use of cannabis high in Δ9-THC may alter the sensitivity to amphetamines. In this exploratory study we hypothesized chronic exposure to Δ9-THC through vaporized cannabis would diminish the central nervous system (CNS)...
Abnormally widened spatial and temporal binding windows (SBW/TBWs; length of space/time whereby stimuli are considered part of the same percept) are observed in schizophrenia. TBW alterations have been associated with altered sense of agency (hereafter referred to as agency), and an associative relationship between embodiment (body ownership) and agency has been proposed. SBWs/TBWs are...
Case Reports in Psychiatry2024Richard C. J. Bradlow, Sophie Wright, Anamaria Szrajbman Vaz da Silva et al.3 citations
Introduction: There has been a recent significant increase in medical cannabis prescribing in Australia despite weak evidence for its effectiveness in treating the most common indications. Concern has been raised about the potential harms of inappropriate prescription of cannabis; however, there have been no prior published cases of psychosis secondary to medicinal cannabis in Australia. Case...
Various countries and US States have legalized cannabis, and the use of the psychoactive1 and non-psychoactive cannabinoids is steadily increasing. In this review, we have collated evidence from published non-clinical and clinical sources to evaluate the abuse, dependence and associated safety risks of the individual cannabinoids present in cannabis. As context, we also evaluated various...
There is a growing interest in semi-synthetic cannabinoids, including THC-O-acetate (THC-Oac). Some cannabis marketers and users have claimed that THC-Oac produces psychedelic effects; the current study is the first to examine this claim. Researchers developed an online survey for THC-Oac consumers based on previous cannabis and psychedelic use surveys and in consultation with the moderator of...
Electronic cigarettes (e-cigs), originally intended to be used as cigarette substitutes, have evolved into discreet devices for consuming drugs other than nicotine (DOTNs). Presented are the results of an exploratory survey in which information regarding demographics, e-cig device type, DOTN use, frequency and context of use was collected. The average reported age of respondents was 27.4 years...