Trial reportProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2014
Decreased dopamine brain reactivity in marijuana abusers is associated with negative emotionality and addiction severity.
Trial report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 111 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
111 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 223 citations in OpenAlex.
- Systematic review and meta-analysis on the effects of chronic peri-adolescent cannabinoid exposure on schizophrenia-like behaviour in rodents.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Effects of sedative drug use on the dopamine system: a systematic review and meta-analysis of in vivo neuroimaging studies.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2019Pooled it
- Nonacute effects of cannabis use on motivation and reward sensitivity in humans: A systematic review.Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · 2018Pooled it
- Cannabis Use in Adults Who Screen Positive for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: CANreduce 2.0 Randomized Controlled Trial Subgroup Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Trial
- Blunted stress reactivity in chronic cannabis users.Psychopharmacology · 2017Trial
- Further human evidence for striatal dopamine release induced by administration of ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC): selectivity to limbic striatum.Psychopharmacology · 2015Trial
- The role of subcortical brain tissue iron as an indicator of dopamine neurophysiology in adolescent cannabis use.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Increased encoding of aversive stimuli by lateral habenula neurons during ΔNature communications · 2026Article
- Developmental variation in basal ganglia tissue iron, neurocognitive functioning, and impulsivity is associated with substance use trajectories in youth.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Factors Associated with Reduced Clinical Response in Adult ADHD: The Role of Alcohol and Cannabis Use Disorders and Autism Spectrum Disorder.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Perinatal exposure to delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) alters goal-directed behavior and dopamine functioning in wistar rats.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- What Do Thirty Years of Neuroimaging Research Tell Us About Recreational Cannabis Use and Brain Integrity? A Narrative Review of the Multimodal Neuroimaging Evidence to Date.Substance abuse and rehabilitation · 2026Review
- Chronic cannabis use in people with bipolar disorder is associated with comparable decision-making and functional outcome to healthy participants.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Article
- Developmental variation in dopamine neurobiology, neurocognitive functioning, and impulsivity shape substance use trajectories in youth.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Involvement of CB1R and CB2R Ligands in Sleep Disorders and Addictive Behaviors in the Last 25 Years.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Kappa opioid receptor availability predicts severity of anhedonia in schizophrenia.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2024Article
- Association of Neuromelanin-Sensitive MRI Signal With Lifetime Substance Use in Young Women.The American journal of psychiatry · 2024Article
- Functional Adaptation in the Brain Habenulo-Mesencephalic Pathway During Cannabinoid Withdrawal.Cells · 2024Article
- Cannabis use disorder: from neurobiology to treatment.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2024Review
51 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Moves to legalize marijuana highlight the urgency to investigate effects of chronic marijuana in the human brain. Here, we challenged 48 participants (24 controls and 24 marijuana abusers) with methylphenidate (MP), a drug that elevates extracellular dopamine (DA) as a surrogate for probing the reactivity of the brain to DA stimulation. We compared the subjective, cardiovascular, and brain DA responses (measured with PET and [(11)C]raclopride) to MP between controls and marijuana abusers. Although baseline (placebo) measures of striatal DA D2 receptor availability did not differ between groups, the marijuana abusers showed markedly blunted responses when challenged with MP. Specifically, compared with controls, marijuana abusers had significantly attenuated behavioral ("self-reports" for high, drug effects, anxiety, and restlessness), cardiovascular (pulse rate and diastolic blood pressure), and brain DA [reduced decreases in distribution volumes (DVs) of [(11)C]raclopride, although normal reductions in striatal nondisplaceable binding potential (BPND)] responses to MP. In ventral striatum (key brain reward region), MP-induced reductions in DVs and BPND (reflecting DA increases) were inversely correlated with scores of negative emotionality, which were significantly higher for marijuana abusers than controls. In marijuana abusers, DA responses in ventral striatum were also inversely correlated with addiction severity and craving. The attenuated responses to MP, including reduced decreases in striatal DVs, are consistent with decreased brain reactivity to the DA stimulation in marijuana abusers that might contribute to their negative emotionality (increased stress reactivity and irritability) and addictive behaviors.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.