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[The Lycaeum Forums]

 The Lycaeum Forums » Integrate » Science (Moderator: farmerjack)Topic:
 ...cannabis use and neurocognitive functioning in bipolar disorder and...

[ST1R]

Psychol Med. 2009 Nov 6:1-11. [Epub ahead of print]
Opposite relationships between cannabis use and neurocognitive functioning in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Ringen PA, Vaskinn A, Sundet K, Engh JA, Jónsdóttir H, Simonsen C, Friis S, Opjordsmoen S, Melle I, Andreassen OA.

Institute of Psychiatry, University of Oslo, N-0318 Oslo, Norway.

BACKGROUND: Cannabis use is associated with altered neurocognitive functioning in severe mental disorders, but data are still inconclusive and there are no studies of bipolar disorder. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between cannabis use and neurocognition in bipolar disorder compared with schizophrenia in a naturalistic setting.MethodA total of 133 patients with bipolar disorder and 140 patients with schizophrenia underwent neuropsychological assessments and clinical characterization including measures of substance use. Relationships between cannabis users and neurocognitive function were explored in the two diagnostic groups. Possible interactions between diagnosis and cannabis use were investigated, and findings were controlled for possible confounders. RESULTS: In bipolar disorder subjects, cannabis use was associated with better neurocognitive function, but the opposite was the case for the schizophrenia subjects. There was a statistically significant interaction effect of diagnosis and cannabis use on focused attention (p=0.019), executive functioning (verbal fluency - set shifting) (p=0.009), logical memory-learning (p=0.007) and on logical memory-recall (p=0.004). These differences in neurocognitive function could not be explained by putative confounders. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that cannabis use may be related to improved neurocognition in bipolar disorder and compromised neurocognition in schizophrenia. The results need to be replicated in independent samples, and may suggest different underlying disease mechanisms in the two disorders.

PMID: 19891810 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

[whateveryouwantmetobe]

Sounds about right, schiz and BD are two different beasts so I wouldn't expect drugs to have the same effect on the afflicted.  Schiz sounds to me like the one more likely to have negative effect from cannabis, just from the description alone.  I think we all know that pot can make (drug-catalyzed) hallucinations more intense.  Why not expect a non-drug-catalyzed hallucination to be much different?

Whereas BD is just like having two vastly different people in your head fighting each other over who gets to talk.  Maybe pot can calm one down and let the other go about its day...

[pshmell]

Sounds about right, schiz and BD are two different beasts so I wouldn't expect drugs to have the same effect on the afflicted.  Schiz sounds to me like the one more likely to have negative effect from cannabis, just from the description alone.  I think we all know that pot can make (drug-catalyzed) hallucinations more intense.  Why not expect a non-drug-catalyzed hallucination to be much different?

Whereas BD is just like having two vastly different people in your head fighting each other over who gets to talk.  Maybe pot can calm one down and let the other go about its day...

Bipolar is like you say, back and forth, one side fighting the other. With severe bipolar, you get extreme mania, followed by extreme lows, depression, followed by more highs, and so on. Everyone's mood is like this, though, cycling between lows and highs, back and forth.

But what the pot does (from what I've seen) is it decreases the intensity of the lows and highs.

It takes you from this:
 
                *|*
            *    |    *
        *        |        *
    *            |            *
 low            0            high

to this:

                 /|\
                / | \
               /  |  \
              /   |   \
           low  0   high

It's very much like how a pendulum balances out.


ST1R can you get that full article? Or bio? or anyone? I'd really love to read it

[foreward]

Being that bipolar and epilepsy are treated similarly, and that there is emerging evidence that epilepsy benefits from cannabis, this does not surprise me. I have not personally noticed any particular affect from using cannabis or any other cannabinoid. However, I have not really been looking for "improvements" either.

A lot of doctors will claim that "all" psychedelics will have a negative affect on all mental illnesses, despite the great variation on how psychedelics work. I have noticed that DXM does improve my bipolar symptoms for a period of several week. Does this have something to do with the fact that Ketamine is being studied with success in treatment resistive depression, or that because ECT treatment improved recently - and coincidentally when the ECT procedure has been conducted under anesthesia? Well, depression is a different beast from bipolar certainly, so, I don't know.

However, it is embarrassingly unscientific to assume that just because some psychedelics negatively affect some conditions that all psychedelics negatively affect all conditions, and moreover, some psychedelics could never actually be beneficial.

[ST1R]

Sorry I don't have full access.

[whateveryouwantmetobe]

On stipulation that you be nice to me in PMs from now on.

[foreward]

And then the wild horses ate a potato. Cheers!

[biosearch]

On stipulation that you be nice to me in PMs from now on.

 Ahem, .. cough,.. hey, hey.. not the only bio, my man. -lol.  If you wish, I will use my search engines, but  I doubt that I will get there first - so I'll let you, biochemist do the honors, my friend.

[pshmell]

heh, i was referring to both of you. It's a biology journal, I figured you both had access to it.

I didn't mean to be rude, I just stand by my principles. I saw people treating people in ways that I know their mother's would not approve of, so I said something.

Thank you for the article, by the way! Important to someone close to me.