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By Sue McGreevey
The Harvard Gazette
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) study finds that one month of abstaining from cannabis use in measurable improvement in memory functions important for learning among regular cannabis users in adolescence and young adulthood.
The study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry is one of the first to prospectively track over time changes in cognitive function associated with halting cannabis use.
"Said Randi Schuster, director of neuropsychology at the Center for Addiction Medicine in the MGH Department of Psychiatry, lead author of the paper. "The first is that adolescents learn better when they are not using cannabis. The second – which is the good news part of the story – is that at least some of the shortcomings associated with cannabis use are not permanent.
Schuster is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
The authors note that the use of cannabis among adolescents is common, with more than 13 percent of middle and high school students. brain maturation, specifically for brain regions that are most susceptible to the effects of cannabis. A 2016 study from the same research team found that cannabis users aged 16 and younger had difficulty learning new information, a problem that was observed in users age 17 and older.
The current study is not only determinable whether cognitive improvement occurs but also When during abstinence this improvement is detectable. The study enrolled 88 participants aged 16 to 25 from the Boston area, all of whom are using cannabis at least once a week. Investigators compared weekly cognitive performance between a group of young cannabis users who agreed to stop for 30 days and a group that continued to use cannabis. To ensure that the two groups have been comparable as possible, they have been randomized to pre-existing differences in learning, mood, cognition, and motivation, and the frequency and intensity of cannabis use.
Participants completed regular assessments of their thinking and memory during the study period. They also provided frequent urine tests to verify cannabis abstinence in those randomized to stop cannabis use, and exposure in the continuing-use group. Members of both groups were paid for study visits, and members of the abstinence group were paid for adhering to cannabis abstinence.
Throughout the study period, the levels of the urinary cannabis biomarker steadily decreased among the abstinence group, with almost 89 percent meeting criteria for 30 days of continuous abstinence. In the continuing-use group, biomarker levels remained unchanged. Cognitive testing found memory – specifically the ability to learn and recall new information – improved only who stopped using cannabis, and this improvement. A month of cannabis abstinence was not associated with improvements in attention.
"The ability to learn or" map down "new information, which is a critical facet of success in the classroom, with sustained nonuse of cannabis." Schuster said. "Young cannabis users who are regular and more likely to succeed in the future will be more successful and more likely to succeed. We can confidently say that these findings strongly suggest that we help young people learn, while continuing to use cannabis can interfere with the learning process.
"There are still a lot of issues to be studied, including whether or not they can improve their ability to maintain abstinence," she added.
Those questions and others are being addressed in a larger follow-up trial than in the past. Participants – ages 13 to 19 – and a group that never used cannabis to help determine whether the cognitive improvements produced by cannabis abstinence return participants to performance levels similar to those of nonusers. Another question about what to do for young people who will be able to learn more.
(Reprinted with permission from the Harvard Gazette.)
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