There recruited (n=148) participants, out of which, 104 were

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Last updated: July 31, 2019

There are enough pieces of psychologicalresearch, which shows the connection of neuropsychological deficits with chroniccannabis uses. However, it is also being observed that cannabis is moreneurotoxic for the chronic users who have started it much earlier before theage of 15 compared to the chronic users who have started it in later stages.The literature review also suggested that adolescent brains are found to beexposed to these toxic effects which, has negative impact on their memoryskills and behaviour compared to non-users.

 Cognitive performance impaired patients findit difficult to process the complex information and as the lifetime intake ofcannabis gets increases, the performance goes slower. The possible reason forthis Cognitive performance impairment is that during the early age when thebrain is maturing biologically, the cannabis use would affect the body developmentand as a result the users will have smaller brain size and would be physicallysmall in height and would have less weight.To experiment this, Fontes et al.

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(2011)recruited (n=148) participants, out of which, 104 were chronic cannabis users.This group was further divided into two groups, one group consist the users(n1=55) who started using it before the age of 15 and the other group had theusers (n2=49) who started it after the age of 15. Both cohorts were consideredas the cases here. Remaining (n3=44) participants were in the control group.The inclusion criteria for the cases were the chronic cannabis users betweenthe age of 18 to 55 irrespective of gender.  Whereas the exclusion requirement involved thehistory of DSM-IV Axis I disorder,current users of cannabis and the history of head trauma, intellectualinfirmity and with IQ less than 80. The control group participant inclusion characteristicswere the participants between the age of 18 and 55, who had never usedpsychoactive substances, especially cannabis in last 3 months or never been exposedmore than 5 times in their life, no history of head trauma as well as negativediagnosis of DSM-IV Axis Idisorder. After obtaining necessary IRB approvalsand getting the ethics informed consent from participants, a battery of testsincluding Composite International Diagnostic interviews were done to obtain thedemographic details, the Time Line Follow Back (TLFB) calendar test was done todetermine the use and dependency on cannabis.

Afterwards, few more tests were conductedto assess the control of the cognitive process, FAB- Frontal AssessmentBattery, IQ (WAIS-R test), to verify the capacity of understanding generalideas, Wisconsin Card sort Test version 64, and Stroop test Victoria version. Thesetests helped in arbitrating the scores related to cognitive performance indicatorslike automatic reading response, effortful colour naming, planning, IQ, conceptualisation,preservation, ability to learn, ability to verbally express themselves etc. Collected data were analysed using theStudent’s t-test, Mann-Whitney U-test and ANOVA with the alpha level set to p<0.05(two-tailed).  The early onset groupstarted consuming cannabis at the mean age of 13.9 with s.d.

of 1.5 whereas thelate onset group started consuming it at the age of 18.4 with s.d. of 2.8.

There was no significant difference in IQ, Vocabulary and block design resultsamongst the early onset case group, late-onset case group, and control group(with p-value >.05). However early-onset group performed significantly poorcompared to late-onset and control group on the WCST test, FAB and Stroop testwith p=value 0.

008 and p=0.006 respectively which was less than .05. To conclude, it was found that there is asignificant difference between cognitive performances of brain amongst theearly-onset group of cannabis users in comparison to the late-onset group ofcannabis users or for that matter with the control group. The performance waspoor for the early onset of the group in contrast to the late onset of groupand control group both.

Moreover, no significant difference was found incognitive performance between the late onset group and control group whereas itwas there with early onset of the group. So, our hypothesis about cannabis usesadversely impacts the cognitive functions if started early found to be true. Thelimitations of the study that the number of male participants for late onsetand early onset of the groups were predominantly composed in compare with the controlgroup which, both male and female participants were equal. As, the case groupswere dominated by the male participants, so gender-based evaluation of the datacould not be generated. Apart from that, all the participants were chroniccannabis users so the effect of cannabis, on the population who had started itrecently and are also the early starter, could not be examined and it could bea potential subject for further research.

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