View clinical trials related to Marijuana Abuse.
Filter by:This study plans to evaluate the effects of chronic cannabis smoking on lung health by evaluating its effects on pulmonary health, lung physiology and alveolar macrophage function.
There is an association between intracranial arterial stenosis and ischemic stroke in young adults. The aim of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of intracranial arterial stenosis in asymptomatic regular resin of cannabis users in comparison with control subjects.
The aim of the present study is to assess the availability of cannabinoid receptors (CB1R) in the human brain. CB1R are present in everyone's brain, regardless of whether or not someone has used cannabis. The investigators will image brain cannabinoid receptors using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging and the radioligand OMAR, in healthy individuals and several conditions including 1) cannabis use disorders, 2) psychotic disorders, 3) prodrome of psychotic illness and 4) individuals with a family history of alcoholism, 5) Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder 6) Opioid Use Disorder using the PET imaging agent or radiotracer, [11C]OMAR. This will allow us to characterize the number and distribution of CB1R in these conditions. It is likely that the list of conditions will be expanded after the collection of pilot data and as new data on cannabinoids receptor function and psychiatric disorders becomes available. Those in the cannabis us disorder arm of the study will have a PET scan on at least three occasions: once while smoking as usual, once after 48-hours of abstinence from cannabis, and a final time after 4 weeks of abstinence. Additional scans may be conducted within the 4 weeks and the last scan may be conducted well beyond 4 weeks. Similarly, while most schizophrenia patients may get scanned just once, a subgroup of patients may get scanned more than once. For example to tease out the effects of medications, unmedicated patients may get scanned while unmedicated and again after treatment with antipsychotic medications. Similarly prodromes may get scanned while in the prodromal stage off medications, on medications and after conversion to schizophrenia.
The aim of the current study is set out to find a human model for negative symptoms based on clinical observation that chronic cannabis users express negative symptoms and characterize by the same neurocognitive and electrophysiology characteristics like patient suffer from schizophrenia. Towards that end the first part of the study is set out to explore weather chronic cannabis user's express negative symptoms similar to patient suffer from schizophrenia. The second part of the study will explore the neurocognitive and electrophysiology characteristics of those cannabis users that express negative symptoms. This data will be compared to parallel data of schizophrenia patients with predominantly negative symptom. Several lines of biological and genetic evidence support the cannabinoid hypothesis for schizophrenia. Particularly, it is most significant clinically that the possible involvement of the cannabinoid system in the neural basis for the negative symptoms. This hypothesis based on clinical findings that chronic cannabis use causes a combination of symptoms including apathy, avolition, lack of interest, passivity, and cognitive impairments, the so-called "amotivational syndrome," which resembles the core negative symptoms of schizophrenia in behavioral level as well as the brain level. Both are associated with the functions or integrity of the frontal lobe due to its role in creating self-directed behaviors, deficits in which may underlie alogia, anhedonia, and flat affect. Despite the aforementioned similarities, to date, there is no documentation for such a relationship. Recognition that chronic cannabis users share the same or similar constellation of symptoms and similar neurocognitive and electrophysiology characteristics could provide a key to develop a human model for negative symptoms and an essential tool to comprehensive understanding of the etiology of negative symptoms and development of an innovative therapy. The investigators Hypothesize That Chronic Cannabis Users Would Express the Same Constellation of Behaviors as Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia; as well as similar neurocognitive and electrophysiology characteristics
Recent studies have established the reliability, validity and time course of the cannabis withdrawal syndrome. This study will investigate the effects of combined treatment of Escitalopram with cognitive-behavior therapy in alleviating the symptoms of the marijuana withdrawal syndrome in regular chronic users of marijuana. We predict that combined pharmacological treatment and cognitive-behavior therapy will help patients to abstain from using using marijuana and it will alleviate their marijuana withdrawal symptoms.
Evaluation of efficacy and safety of H-coil deep transcranial magnetic stimulation 9 week treatment trial for cannabis addiction as assessed by measures of drug intake and craving.
INCA (Intervention and Neuropsychology of Cannabis Abuse) is a study combining two research goals. One is to study efficacy of a short intervention the ‘Problem Profile Intervention’, which utilizes individual feedback from a ‘substance problem check-up’. Subjects will randomly receive the ‘Problem Profile Intervention’ or the WHO Brief Intervention, a brief intervention, which has been shown to be efficacious. Currently efficiency studies are under way. The WHO Brief Intervention has been translated into German by our group. In contrast to most other cannabis intervention studies the current study is focussed on cannabis abusers not so much cannabis-dependent subjects. A total of 160 subjects are to be recruited. Half of them will randomly receive either the Problem Profile Intervention or the WHO Brief Intervention (active control). A total of 25% of subjects from each group will be placed on a 3 months waiting list before receiving the intervention (inactive control). Intervention outcome will be assessed three months, six month and 12 months after the intervention. We hypothesize cannabis use to be reduced by 25% by the 'Problem Profile Intervention'. The second aim of the study is to study mechanism of substance abuse. Initial results from own studies and data from other groups point to executive cognitive functions as a subtle but important factor that can be compromised in cannabis users (Verdejo-Garcia et al., 2004; Garavan and Stout, 2005). Using an fMRI-study, we intend to examine a subgroup of our subjects on a specific aspect of executive functioning that has recently received major interest in drug research: Decision-making capability, or risk-taking behaviour, respectively (e.g. Ernst and Paulus, 2005).