Cannabis dependence

Pain severity was a strong predictor of nocturnal and morning cravings and moderated the association between WASO and opioid use.

Our final article is in Translational Psychiatry and is titled White Matter Signatures of Addiction Diverge Across Opioids, Cannabis, and Nicotine and Predict Impulsive Choice in Cannabis Dependence.

This cross-sectional, dual-centered diffusion MRI study compared white matter microstructure in 87 individuals with cannabis, opioid, or nicotine dependence and 53 non-smoking healthy controls, examining associations with impulsive decision-making and substance use severity.

Cannabis and opioid dependence exhibited overlapping, widespread reductions in fractional anisotropy and increases in mean diffusivity and orientation dispersion across frontotemporal, parietal, and limbic pathways, whereas nicotine dependence showed more circumscribed alterations, primarily in mean diffusivity within anterior and callosal regions.

In cannabis dependence, greater orientation dispersion in the middle longitudinal fasciculus was associated with steeper delay discounting, with moderated mediation analyses identifying a significant indirect association through cannabis consumption only among daily users.

No significant corresponding association was observed in opioid dependence.

These findings identify shared and substance-specific microstructural abnormalities and an association between middle longitudinal fasciculus microstructure and impulsive choice in cannabis dependence, although the cross-sectional design precludes causal inference.

This concludes today's episode of This Week in Addiction Medicine.