|
Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
|
|
Greece: Heavy Marijuana Use Linked to Memory and Learning Deficits
Peggy Peck Medpage Today
Monday 13 Mar 2006 Review PATRAS, Greece, March 13 - Heavy marijuana use for five years or more may impair memory and slow cognitive function, according to researchers here. Compared with controls, persons who used marijuana at least four days a week had lower scores on a standardized test of verbal learning skills and were generally "slow learners," Lambros Messinis, Ph.D., and colleagues of University Hospital Patras reported in the March 14 issue of Neurology. Moreover, while the impairment was greater among long term users -- those who regularly used marijuana for at least 10 years -- it was also evident among those who used for only five years, they wrote. The study assessed neuropsychological status in three groups: 20 current, long-term frequent cannabis users; 20 current, short-term cannabis users, and 24 controls who had used cannabis at least once but no more than 20 times in their lives and who had not used the drug in the previous two years. Current users were tested after they were abstinent for at least 24 hours, which was confirmed by urinary toxicology screening. The subjects were evaluated using the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), the Boston Naming Test, a verbal fluency test, Trail Making Test A, Trail Making Test B, and the Beck Depression Inventory-Fast Screen. The authors found "a steady increase in the proportion of participants classified as impaired, with the lowest rates in the control group and the highest in the long-term group." By requiring at least a day of abstinence before testing, the authors attempted to simulate the sober cognitive state in marijuana users. They found: * Long term users performed significantly poorer on verbal memory than short term users and controls. * Long term and short term users performed worse on tests of phonemic (P=0.002 for long term and P<0.001 for short term) and semantic fluency (P<0.001 for long term users, P=0.004 for short term) than controls. * Compared to controls long and short term users had impaired psychomotor speed, attention and executive function compared to controls. * Among long term users "deficits were seen on almost every trial of the RAVLT, indicating a generalized verbal memory deficit." The authors concluded that their findings support other studies that have linked long term marijuana use to "subtle deficits in specific neuropsychological domains." http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/Addictions/tb/2851
After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.
|
This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.
Feel free to link to this page!