The psychosis-like effects of Δ(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol are associated with increased cortical noise in healthy humans.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Drugs that induce psychosis may do so by increasing the level of task-irrelevant random neural activity or neural noise. Increased levels of neural noise have been demonstrated in psychotic disorders. We tested the hypothesis that neural noise could also be involved in the psychotomimetic effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ(9)-THC), the principal active constituent of cannabis.

Methods

Neural noise was indexed by measuring the level of randomness in the electroencephalogram during the prestimulus baseline period of an oddball task using Lempel-Ziv complexity, a nonlinear measure of signal randomness. The acute, dose-related effects of Δ(9)-THC on Lempel-Ziv complexity and signal power were studied in humans (n = 24) who completed 3 test days during which th

SUBMITTER: Cortes-Briones JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4627857 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature