Prior neuroimaging studies have suggested that alterations in brain structure may be a consequence of cannabis use. Siblings discordant for cannabis use offer an opportunity to use cross-sectional data to disentangle such causal hypotheses from shared effects of genetics and familial environment on brain structure and cannabis use. To determine whether cannabis use is associated with...
INTRODUCTION: Adolescents with psychoses usually have full recovery from their first psychotic episode, but the first relapse often arises within 2 years of the first episode. Cannabis-related psychoses are difficult to distinguish from schizophrenic psychoses. Here, we describe a particularly severe clinical case, with a first psychotic episode occurring after heavy cannabis smoking, an...
The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between chronic cannabis use and visual selective attention by examining event-related potentials (ERPs) during the performance of a flanker go/nogo task. Male participants were 15 chronic cannabis users (minimum two years use, at least once per week) and 15 drug naive controls. Cannabis users showed longer reaction times compared to...
The aversive effects of ∆(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) are mediated by activity at the kappa opioid receptor (KOR) as assessed in adult animals; however, no studies have assessed KOR involvement in the aversive effects of THC in adolescents. Given that adolescents have been reported to be insensitive to the aversive effects induced by KOR agonists, a different mechanism might mediate the...
Co-occurring cannabis and tobacco use has become increasingly prevalent among young adults, but it is not clear how tobacco use may alter the neurocognitive profile typically observed among cannabis users. Although there is substantial evidence citing cannabis and tobacco's individual effect on episodic memory and related brain structures, few studies have examined the effect of combined...
Some drugs of abuse may produce dissociative symptoms, but this aspect has been understudied. We explored the dissociative potential of three recreational drugs (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), cannabis, and cocaine) during intoxication and compared their effects to literature reports of dissociative states in various samples. Two placebo-controlled studies were conducted. In Study 1...
SuchttherapieAugust 20, 2015Maria Christiane Jockers-Scherübl, T Wolf, Johannes Rentzsch
Einleitung: Cannabis ist die am häufigsten konsumierte illegale Substanz weltweit. Selbst bei sinkender Gesamtzahl der Konsumenten ist die Anzahl der heavy consumers gleichbleibend hoch. Dies kann zu komorbiden psychischen Störungen führen, von denen Schizophrenien die schwierigsten sind und sogar durch Cannabis ausgelöst werden können. Auch Depressionen, Angststörungen, das...
Neuroscience LettersAugust 18, 2015Lindsay Silva, Lauren Harte-Hargrove, Sari Izenwasser et al.
Marijuana use by adolescents has been on the rise since the early 1990s. With recent legalization and decriminalization acts passed, cannabinoid exposure in adolescents will undoubtedly increase. Human studies are limited in their ability to examine underlying changes in brain biochemistry making rodent models valuable. Studies in adult and adolescent animals show region and sex specific...
Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States and its use is rising. Nonetheless, scientific efforts to clarify the risk for addiction and other harm associated with marijuana use have been lacking. Maladaptive decision-making is a cardinal feature of addiction that is likely to emerge in heavy users. In particular, distorted subjective reward valuation related to...
Cannabis use is becoming more accepted in mainstream society. In this paper, we use Zinberg's classic theoretical framework of drug, set, and setting to elucidate how older adult cannabis users managed health, social and legal risks in a context of normalized cannabis use. We present selected findings from our qualitative study of Baby Boomer (born 1946-1964) cannabis users in the San Francisco...