Healthy Humans
Conditions
Keywords
THC and CBD, Attentional blink
Brief summary
Attentional blink refers to a phenomenon where the detection of the second of two target stimuli that are presented in Short succession within a stream of stimuli is impaired. This is explained by an insufficient availability of attentional resources. Additionally, emotionally salient stimuli, like for example pictures with a positive or negative content, are detected more often compared to neutral pictures during this attentional blink period. Cannabinoids are involved in the modulation of cognitive, attentional, and emotional processes. Interestingly, data from animals suggests that THC and CBD, both active ingredients in the Cannabis sativa plant, have opposing effects on brain cannabinoid (CB1) receptors. CB1 receptors modulate the expression of emotionally salient conditioned association in rats, if salience processes in humans are modulated in the same way remains unclear. Employing a task to detect salient stimuli, Bhattacharyya et al. (2012) showed that THC seems to make non-salient standard stimuli more salient. They showed decreased activation of the right caudate and increased right prefrontal cortex stimuli during processing of salient stimuli. Importantly, this was associated with decreased response times to standard relative to oddball stimuli. Generally, THC and CBD differentially modulate brain areas associated with attentional salience processing. For example THC seems to increase prefrontal and striatal activation whereas CBD seems to decrease it. The investigators assume that THC increases the number of correctly detected emotional stimuli during the attentional blink period, whereas CBD has no effect. Additionally, the investigators assume that pictures of the positive category are detected with higher accuracy than negative ones under the influence of THC.
Interventions
Sponsors
Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
DOUBLE (Subject, Investigator)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
MALE
Age
18 Years to 65 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* male * age between 18 and 65 years * right-handed
Exclusion criteria
* consumption of cannabis more than 5 times * substance abuse (apart from nicotine) * psychiatric disorders * epilepsy * chronic diseases (e.g. diabetes)
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Correctly identified emotional pictures during the attentional blink period | immediate | Number of correctly identified emotional pictures that were presented during the attentional blink period. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Reaction time to correctly identified emotional pictures during the attentional blink period | immediate | Reaction time (in ms) of the button press to the correctly identified emotional pictures that were presented during the attentional blink period. |
Countries
Germany
Outcome results
None listed