Processing of Salient Emotional Stimuli as a Function of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and Cannabidiol (CBD)

Healthy Humans Clinical Trial

— AB_THC_CBD  

Official title:

Processing of Salient Emotional Stimuli as a Function of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and Cannabidiol (CBD)

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT02291536
• Other study ID #: AB_THC_CBD
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• First received: November 11, 2014
• Last updated: January 15, 2015
• Start date: February 2014
• Est. completion date: December 2014

Study information

• Verified date: November 2014
• Source: Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: Germany: Ethics Commission
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

Attentional blink refers to a phenomenon where the detection of the second of two target stimuli that are presented in Short succession within a stream of stimuli is impaired. This is explained by an insufficient availability of attentional resources. Additionally, emotionally salient stimuli, like for example pictures with a positive or negative content, are detected more often compared to neutral pictures during this attentional blink period.

Cannabinoids are involved in the modulation of cognitive, attentional, and emotional processes. Interestingly, data from animals suggests that THC and CBD, both active ingredients in the Cannabis sativa plant, have opposing effects on brain cannabinoid (CB1) receptors. CB1 receptors modulate the expression of emotionally salient conditioned association in rats, if salience processes in humans are modulated in the same way remains unclear.

Employing a task to detect salient stimuli, Bhattacharyya et al. (2012) showed that THC seems to make non-salient standard stimuli more salient. They showed decreased activation of the right caudate and increased right prefrontal cortex stimuli during processing of salient stimuli. Importantly, this was associated with decreased response times to standard relative to oddball stimuli. Generally, THC and CBD differentially modulate brain areas associated with attentional salience processing. For example THC seems to increase prefrontal and striatal activation whereas CBD seems to decrease it.

The investigators assume that THC increases the number of correctly detected emotional stimuli during the attentional blink period, whereas CBD has no effect. Additionally, the investigators assume that pictures of the positive category are detected with higher accuracy than negative ones under the influence of THC.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 20
• Est. completion date: December 2014
• Est. primary completion date: December 2014
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: Male
• Age group: 18 Years to 65 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• male

• age between 18 and 65 years

• right-handed

Exclusion Criteria:

• consumption of cannabis more than 5 times

• substance abuse (apart from nicotine)

• psychiatric disorders

• epilepsy

• chronic diseases (e.g. diabetes)

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Intervention Model: Single Group Assignment, Masking: Double Blind (Subject, Investigator), Primary Purpose: Basic Science

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Healthy Humans

Intervention

Drug:
• tetrahydrocannabinol

• cannabidiol

Other:
• placebo

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Germany	Central Institute of Mental Health	Mannheim

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Germany, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Correctly identified emotional pictures during the attentional blink period	Number of correctly identified emotional pictures that were presented during the attentional blink period.	immediate	No
Secondary	Reaction time to correctly identified emotional pictures during the attentional blink period	Reaction time (in ms) of the button press to the correctly identified emotional pictures that were presented during the attentional blink period.	immediate	No