Archival ReportΔ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol at Retrieval Drives False Recollection of Neutral and Emotional Memories
Section snippets
Participants
Twenty-four healthy young adults (18–29 years of age, 12 men) with some experience using cannabis (4–100 lifetime occasions) were recruited for the study, but 1 male participant was excluded for not following instructions, leaving 23 participants. Screening included a physical examination, an electrocardiogram, and a semistructured interview by a clinical psychologist. Exclusion criteria included any current DSM-IV Axis I disorder, including substance dependence, current use of >5
Cued Recollection
Full cued recollection data can be found in Table 3. Cued recollection hit rates were directly related to valence (hits [F2,44 = 27.371, p < .001, ηp2 = .554], high-confidence hits [F2,44 = 29.709, p < .001, ηp2 = .575]). As expected, negative stimuli were remembered better than neutral and positive stimuli (Figures 1A and 2A). Relative to placebo, THC did not affect hits (F1,22 = 2.025, p = .169) or high-confidence hits (F1,22 = 0.062, p > .250), nor did it modulate the effect of valence (hits
Discussion
This experiment is the first to find that selectively administering THC during episodic memory retrieval increases false recollection. Evidence for this effect was found across all emotional valences in the emotional memory task and also for neutral words in the DRM task. These findings are consistent with studies using emotionally neutral verbal stimuli showing that THC increases false recognition 2, 34 and recall intrusions 3, 35. However, in those studies participants were intoxicated during
Acknowledgments and Disclosures
This project was supported by Grant No. DA02812 (to HdW).
We thank lab personnel who recruited and screened participants and Royce Lee, M.D., for medical oversight.
HdW has received a GRAND research award from Pfizer, donation of a study drug from Indivior, support for a research study from Insys Therapeutics, and consulting fees from Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Marinus, and Organon. None of these were related to the research presented here. The other authors report no biomedical
References (49)
- et al.
Marijuana and memory impairment: Effect on free recall and recognition memory
Pharmacol Biochem Behav
(1977) - et al.
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) impairs encoding but not retrieval of verbal information
Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry
(2017) - et al.
Acute effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiol and their combination on facial emotion recognition: A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in cannabis users
Eur Neuropsychopharmacol
(2015) - et al.
Effects of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol on human working memory function
Biol Psychiatry
(2012) - et al.
The ins and outs of the striatum: Role in drug addiction
Neuroscience
(2015) - et al.
Striatal contributions to declarative memory retrieval
Neuron
(2012) - et al.
Dissociation between the neural correlates of recollection and familiarity in the striatum and hippocampus: Across-study convergence
Behav Brain Res
(2018) - et al.
Savoring the past: Positive memories evoke value representations in the striatum
Neuron
(2014) - et al.
Differential subjective effects of D-amphetamine by gender, hormone levels and menstrual cycle phase
Pharmacol Biochem Behav
(2002) The nature of recollection and familiarity: A review of 30 years of research
J Mem Lang
(2002)
Neurophysiological and cognitive effects of smoked marijuana in frequent users
Pharmacol Biochem Behav
Marijuana: An analysis of storage and retrieval deficits in memory with the technique of restricted reminding
Pharmacol Biochem Behav
Hyper-priming in cannabis users: A naturalistic study of the effects of cannabis on semantic memory function
Psychiatry Res
Investigating the interaction between schizotypy, divergent thinking and cannabis use
Conscious Cogn
Marijuana dependence moderate the effect of posttraumatic stress disorder on trauma cue reactivity in substance dependent patients
Drug Alcohol Depend
Keep off the grass? Cannabis, cognition and addiction
Nat Rev Neurosci
Effects of marijuana on neurophysiological signals of working and episodic memory
Psychopharmacology (Berl)
Psychoactive drugs and false memory: Comparison of dextroamphetamine and delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol on false recognition
Psychopharmacology (Berl)
Pre-encoding administration of amphetamine or THC preferentially modulates emotional memory in humans
Psychopharmacology (Berl)
Effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol on evaluation of emotional images
J Psychopharmacol
Cannabinoid modulation of amygdala reactivity to social signals of threat in humans
J Neurosci
A memory-based model of posttraumatic stress disorder: Evaluating basic assumptions underlying the PTSD diagnosis
Psychol Rev
Associations of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms with marijuana and synthetic cannabis use among young adult U.S. veterans: A pilot investigation
J Stud Alcohol Drugs
Associations among trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder, cannabis use, and cannabis use disorder in a nationally representative epidemiologic sample
Psychol Addict Behav
Cited by (23)
The acute effects of psychoactive drugs on emotional episodic memory encoding, consolidation, and retrieval: A comprehensive review
2023, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral ReviewsRemembering Molly: Immediate and delayed false memory formation after acute MDMA exposure
2022, European NeuropsychopharmacologyCitation Excerpt :The current findings provide some support for this explanation. Furthermore, the finding that associative false memory is differentially affected depending on whether a drug is present mostly at encoding versus retrieval is reminiscent of research on THC (main psychoactive cannabis compound; Ballard et al., 2012; Doss et al., 2018a; Kloft et al., 2021, 2019, 2020). Although the current study design does not permit full disentanglement of these memory stages, we see tendencies that MDMA, similarly to THC, increases DRM false memory at retrieval but reduces it when encoding effects are isolated.
Hazy memories in the courtroom: A review of alcohol and other drug effects on false memory and suggestibility
2021, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral ReviewsCitation Excerpt :Both true and false memory (the latter defined as false recognition of critical lures) were found to be statistically significantly reduced, but only when compared to a dextroamphetamine condition (a memory-enhancing drug, separate study thus between-subjects) and not the placebo condition. The inverse of this study design was employed by Doss et al. (2018a), who had participants (N = 23, within-subjects) study DRM lists while sober and administered THC (15 mg capsule) 48 h later at retrieval. They found no statistically significant difference for correct recognition, but false alarms for both critical and unrelated lures were significantly increased compared to a placebo condition, indicating a cannabis-induced response bias.
THC and CBD blood and brain concentrations following daily administration to adolescent primates
2020, Drug and Alcohol DependenceCitation Excerpt :THC has reinforcing effects when examined under experimental conditions in primates (Justinova et al., 2003; Tanda et al., 2000) or humans (Hart et al., 2005). THC can also precipitate psychosis in humans (Murray et al., 2017; Hindley et al., 2020), promote or attenuate anxiety in rats, humans, humans (Fokos and Panagis, 2010; Hindley et al., 2020; Van Ameringen et al., 2020, respectively), and compromise cognition and motor coordination in humans (Broyd et al., 2016; Crean et al., 2011; Doss et al., 2018; Weinstein et al., 2008). The pharmacological effects of THC are largely attributed to its high affinity and partial agonist activity at the CB1 cannabinoid receptor.
Δ<sup>9</sup>-Tetrahydrocannabinol During Encoding Impairs Perceptual Details yet Spares Context Effects on Episodic Memory
2020, Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and NeuroimagingCitation Excerpt :During the first session of each arm, participants in a drug-free state viewed emotional pictures and verbal stimuli. At the second session, each participant ingested a capsule containing placebo or THC and 2 hours later completed memory tests for the emotional pictures and verbal stimuli [described in detail in a previous article (2)]. Participants then completed the encoding phase of the object-scene stimuli for the present experiment.
Cannabinoid interventions for PTSD: Where to next?
2019, Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological PsychiatryCitation Excerpt :Marketed versions or synthetic analogues of THC have also improved PTSD symptoms, with nabilone and THC improving nightmares, sleep quality, hyperarousal and overall symptomology in PTSD patients (Cameron et al., 2014; Fraser, 2009; Jetly et al., 2015; Roitman et al., 2014). However, THC administered prior to memory retrieval was recently found to increase false recollection of emotional and non-emotional stimuli in healthy participants (Doss et al., 2018), suggesting that distortion, rather than reconsolidation, of memories may be an unwanted side-effect of THC treatment. Further, THC administration to rat nucleus accumbens increased salience of fear memories, which further suggests that THC may in some situations contribute to unwanted memory traces (Fitoussi et al., 2018).