Laboratório Interdisciplinar de Neurociências Clínicas and Unidade de Pesquisas em Álcool e Drogas, Departamento de Psiquiatria, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Br J Psychiatry. 2011 Jun;198(6):442-7. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.110.077479.
Many studies have suggested that adolescence is a period of particular vulnerability to neurocognitive effects associated with substance misuse. However, few large studies have measured differences in cognitive performance between chronic cannabis users who started in early adolescence (before age 15) with those who started later.
To examine the executive functioning of individuals who started chronic cannabis use before age 15 compared with those who started chronic cannabis use after 15 and controls.
We evaluated the performance of 104 chronic cannabis users (49 early-onset users and 55 late-onset users) and 44 controls who undertook neuropsychological tasks, with a focus on executive functioning. Comparisons involving neuropsychological measures were performed using generalised linear model analysis of variance (ANOVA).
The early-onset group showed significantly poorer performance compared with the controls and the late-onset group on tasks assessing sustained attention, impulse control and executive functioning.
Early-onset chronic cannabis users exhibited poorer cognitive performance than controls and late-onset users in executive functioning. Chronic cannabis use, when started before age 15, may have more deleterious effects on neurocognitive functioning.
许多研究表明，青少年时期特别容易受到与物质滥用相关的神经认知影响。然而，很少有大型研究测量过在青少年早期（15 岁之前）开始慢性大麻使用的人与后来开始使用的人之间的认知表现差异。
检查在 15 岁之前开始慢性大麻使用的个体与 15 岁以后开始慢性大麻使用的个体和对照组之间的执行功能。
我们评估了 104 名慢性大麻使用者（49 名早期使用者和 55 名晚期使用者）和 44 名对照组的表现，重点是执行功能。使用广义线性模型方差分析（ANOVA）对涉及神经心理学测量的比较进行了分析。
与对照组和晚期使用者相比，早期使用者在评估持续注意力、冲动控制和执行功能的任务中表现明显较差。
早期慢性大麻使用者在执行功能方面的认知表现比对照组和晚期使用者差。15 岁之前开始慢性大麻使用可能对神经认知功能有更具破坏性的影响。
