Effects of marijuana on neurophysiological signals of working and episodic memory.
BACKGROUND
The primary psychoactive constituent of marijuana, Delta9-THC, activates cannabinoid receptors, which are especially abundant in the frontal cortex and hippocampus. Acute marijuana smoking can disrupt working memory (WM) and episodic memory (EM) functions that are known to rely on these regions. However, the effects of marijuana on the brain activity accompanying such cognitive processes remain largely unexplored.


OBJECTIVE
To examine such effects on performance and neurophysiological signals of these functions, EEG recordings were obtained from ten subjects (5M, 5F) performing cognitive tasks before and after smoking marijuana (3.45% Delta9-THC) or a placebo. WM was assessed with a spatial N-back task, and EM was evaluated with a test requiring recognition of words after a 5-10 min delay between study and test.


RESULTS
Marijuana increased heart rate and decreased global theta band EEG power, consistent with increased autonomic arousal. Responses in the WM task were slower and less accurate after smoking marijuana, accompanied by reduced alpha band EEG reactivity in response to increased task difficulty. In the EM task, marijuana was associated with an increased tendency to erroneously identify distracter words as having been previously studied. In both tasks, marijuana attenuated stimulus-locked event-related potentials (ERPs).


CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest that marijuana disrupted both sustained and transient attention processes resulting in impaired memory task performance. In subjects most affected by marijuana a pronounced ERP difference between previously studied words and new distracter words was also reduced, suggesting disruption of neural mechanisms underlying memory for recent study episodes.
Ilan
Aaron B
AB
San Francisco Brain Research Institute & SAM Technology, 425 Bush Street, San Francisco, CA 94108, USA. aaron@eeg.com
Smith
Michael E
ME
Gevins
Alan
A
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000187:drug effects*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008385:Marijuana Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000523:psychology; D008568:Memory / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology