Executive Functions in Patients with Cannabis Use Disorder, Recovered and Normal Individuals

Abstract

Cannabis is the most popular illicit drug in the world. Repeated cannabis use is associated with adverse cognitive and mental health. Purpose of this study were compared Executive Functions in patients with cannabis use, recovered (patients treated) and normal individuals. For this purpose, in a causal-comparative study, 50 patients who used cannabis who referred to Shiraz psychiatric centers in the first six months of 2019, they did not have psychiatric, neurological, cognitive disabilities and dependence on non-opioids and received a definitive diagnosis of cannabis use disorder by a psychiatrist, 50 recovered patients with at least six months of no-use period and 50 normal individuals with no history of substance use were selected by available sampling method and were evaluated by the Wisconsin card sorting test and the Wechsler memory scale. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed that the performance of cannabis group compared to the improved group and normal individuals and also the performance of the improved group compared to the normal group in Wisconsin test and Wechsler memory scale were significantly different. But there was no significant difference in the perseveration error in the improved and normal groups. Therefore, it can be said that cannabis consumption disrupts the executive functions and memory of consumers and can continue even after quitting.

Keywords

• cannabis use
• executive functions
• memory