Intoxication by a synthetic cannabinoid (JWH-018) causes cognitive and psychomotor impairment in recreational cannabis users

DOI

Background: Smoking mixtures containing synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) have become very popular over the last years but pose a serious risk for public health. Limited knowledge is, however, available regarding the acute effects of SCs on cognition and psychomotor performance. Earlier we demonstrated signs of impairment in healthy volunteers after administering one of the first SCs, JWH-018, even though subjective intoxication was low. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the acute effects of JWH-018 on several cognitive and psychomotor tasks in participants who are demonstrating representative levels of acute intoxication. Methods: 24 healthy cannabis-experienced participants took part in this placebo-controlled, cross-over study. Participants inhaled the vapor of 75 μg JWH-018/kg body weight and were given a booster dose if needed to induce a minimum level of subjective high. They were subsequently monitored for 4 h, during which psychomotor and cognitive performance, vital signs, and subjective experience were measured, and serum concentrations were determined. Results: Maximum subjective high (average 64%) was reached 30 min after administration of JWH-018, while the maximum blood concentration was shown after 5 min (8 ng/mL). JWH-018 impaired motor coordination (CTT), attention (DAT and SST), memory (SMT), it lowered speed-accuracy efficiency (MFFT) and slowed down response speed (DAT). Conclusion: In accordance with our previous studies, we demonstrated acute psychomotor and cognitive effects of a relatively low dose of JWH-018.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.34894/8UGJ0A
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pbb.2021.173118
Metadata Access https://dataverse.nl/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=doi:10.34894/8UGJ0A
Provenance
Creator Theunissen, Eef L. ORCID logo; Reckweg, Johannes T. ORCID logo; Hutten, Nadia R.P.W. ORCID logo; Kuypers, Kim P.C. ORCID logo; Toennes, Stefan ORCID logo; Neukamm, Merja A. ORCID logo; Halter, Sebastian; Ramaekers, Johannes G. (ORCID: 0000-0003-4553-376X)
Publisher DataverseNL
Contributor Theunissen, Eef L.; faculty data manager FPN
Publication Year 2021
Rights info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess
OpenAccess false
Contact Theunissen, Eef L. (Maastricht University); faculty data manager FPN (Maastricht University)
Representation
Resource Type experimental data; Dataset
Format application/x-spss-sav
Size 39004
Version 1.0
Discipline Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Aquaculture; Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Aquaculture and Veterinary Medicine; Life Sciences; Social Sciences; Social and Behavioural Sciences; Soil Sciences