Center for Children and Families, Department of Psychology, Florida International University.
Neuropsychology. 2019 Jul;33(5):701-710. doi: 10.1037/neu0000538. Epub 2019 Mar 14.
Impairments in neurocognitive functioning, including memory and executive functions, have been identified among adult cannabis users; however, less is known about the effects of cannabis use (CU) among adolescent users. Delineating the directionality of associations between CU and neurocognition has been restricted due to the relatively few longitudinal studies examining this question. As such, we examined whether decision-making prospectively predicted CU, and whether increases in CU were associated with changes in decision-making and episodic memory among a sample consisting predominantly of adolescent cannabis users.
Adolescents (n = 401), aged 14-17 at baseline, completed 3 (biannual) assessments across a 1-year period. Latent growth curve analyses in structural equation models were conducted to examine potential associations between decision-making and growth in CU, and associations between change in CU and change in decision-making or episodic memory performance.
Significant cross-sectional associations were observed between greater CU and poorer decision-making and episodic memory performance (p < .05), consistent with our hypotheses and prior findings. However, decision-making performance did not predict change in CU frequency across 1 year. Neither was change in decision-making associated with changes in CU. However, increasing cannabis use was associated with worsening immediate (but not delayed) episodic memory.
Our findings suggest that poorer decision-making does not put teens at relatively early stages of cannabis use at risk for further escalation in use over one year. However, increasing cannabis use over the same period was associated with declines in immediate memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
认知功能障碍，包括记忆和执行功能，在成年大麻使用者中已经被识别出来；然而，在青少年大麻使用者中，关于大麻使用（CU）的影响知之甚少。由于很少有纵向研究来检验这个问题，因此限制了描述 CU 与神经认知之间关联的方向性。因此，我们研究了决策是否可以预测 CU，以及 CU 的增加是否与在主要由青少年大麻使用者组成的样本中决策和情景记忆的变化有关。
年龄在 14-17 岁的青少年（n=401）在基线时完成了 3 次（每两年一次）评估，为期 1 年。结构方程模型中的潜在增长曲线分析用于检验决策与 CU 增长之间的潜在关联，以及 CU 变化与决策或情景记忆表现变化之间的关联。
在 CU 增加和较差的决策和情景记忆表现之间观察到显著的横截面关联（p<0.05），这与我们的假设和先前的发现一致。然而，决策表现并不能预测在 1 年内 CU 频率的变化。CU 的变化也与决策的变化无关。然而，增加大麻的使用与即时（但不是延迟）情景记忆的恶化有关。
我们的研究结果表明，较差的决策并不能使青少年处于大麻使用的相对早期阶段，使他们在一年的时间里增加使用的风险增加。然而，在同一时期，大麻的使用量增加与即时记忆的下降有关。
