Dataset Information

Cannabis increases susceptibility to false memory.

ABSTRACT: With the growing global acceptance of cannabis and its widespread use by eyewitnesses and suspects in legal cases, understanding the popular drug's ramifications for memory is a pressing need. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, we examined the acute and delayed effects of ?9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) intoxication on susceptibility to false memory in 64 healthy volunteers. Memory was tested immediately (encoding and retrieval under drug influence) and 1 wk later (retrieval sober). We used three different methods (associative word lists and two misinformation tasks using virtual reality). Across all methods, we found evidence for enhanced false-memory effects in intoxicated participants. Specifically, intoxicated participants showed higher false recognition in the associative word-list task both at immediate and delayed test than controls. This yes bias became increasingly strong with decreasing levels of association between studied and test items. In a misinformation task, intoxicated participants were more susceptible to false-memory creation using a virtual-reality eyewitness scenario and virtual-reality perpetrator scenario. False-memory effects were mostly restricted to the acute-intoxication phase. Cannabis seems to increase false-memory proneness, with decreasing strength of association between an event and a test item, as assessed by different false-memory paradigms. Our findings have implications for how and when the police should interview suspects and eyewitnesses.

SUBMITTER: Kloft L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7060677 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Cannabis increases susceptibility to false memory.

Kloft Lilian L Otgaar Henry H Blokland Arjan A Monds Lauren A LA Toennes Stefan W SW Loftus Elizabeth F EF Ramaekers Johannes G JG

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20200210 9

With the growing global acceptance of cannabis and its widespread use by eyewitnesses and suspects in legal cases, understanding the popular drug's ramifications for memory is a pressing need. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, we examined the acute and delayed effects of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) intoxication on susceptibility to false memory in 64 healthy volunteers. Memory was tested immediately (encoding and retrieval under drug influence) and 1 wk later (retrieval ...[more]

PMID: 32041881

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Project description:BackgroundSubstance abuse has an impact on various cognitive domains, including memory. Even though this impact has been extensively examined across different subdomains, false memory has been sparsely studied. This systematic review and meta-analysis seek to synthesize the current scientific data concerning false memory formation in individuals with a history of substance abuse.MethodsPubMed, Scopus, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and PsycINFO were searched to identify all experimental and observational studies in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. Studies were then examined by four independent reviewers and, if they met the inclusion criteria, assessed for their quality. The Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool for randomized controlled trials (RCT) and the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal checklists for quasi-experimental and analytic cross-sectional studies were used to assess the risk of bias.ResultsFrom the 443 screened studies, 27 (and two more from other sources) were considered eligible for full-text review. A final 18 studies were included in the present review. Of these, 10 were conducted with alcoholics or heavy drinkers, four focused on ecstasy/polydrug users, three were done with cannabis users and one focused on methadone maintenance patients with current cocaine dependence. Regarding false memory type, 15 studies focused on false recognition/recall, and three on provoked confabulation.ConclusionsNone but one of the studies considering false recognition/recall of critical lures found any significant differences between individuals with a history of substance abuse and healthy controls. However, most of the studies taking into account false recognition/recall of related and unrelated events found that individuals with a history of substance abuse showed significantly higher rates of false memories than controls. Future research should continue to consider different types of false memories as well as their potential association with relevant clinical variables.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=266503, identifier: CRD42021266503.

Dataset Information

Cannabis increases susceptibility to false memory.

Publications

Cannabis increases susceptibility to false memory.

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