The results of a new study examining the relationship between cannabidiol (CBD) and psychosis were published in the JAMA Psychiatry medical journal on Wednesday, August 29.
Conducted by a team of researchers at King’s College in London, the study involved thirty-three individuals with a high risk for psychosis, and nineteen healthy control subjects. Participants with an elevated risk of psychosis were chosen from a double-blind, randomized clinical trial.
Subjects were asked to refrain from using cannabis, alcohol, nicotine, and other drugs beforehand, and were required to pass a drug screening before being included in the study.
Trial participants randomly received either a placebo capsule or an oral 600mg dose of CBD. After three hours, each underwent an MRI while performing a verbal paired associate (VPA) task involving word association, memory tests.
The blood-oxygen level dependent responses of each participant’s brain were recorded during each block of the MRI-VPA stage of the study and analyzed using the King’s College’s own XBAM software, which their Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience has been developing since 1995.
After reviewing the data, researchers found that with a single oral dose of CBD, subjects experienced a restoration of neurological function, though memory task performance appeared to be unaffected.
Researchers conclude the report by stating that their study suggests that CBD may partially normalize dysfunction in the striatum, medial temporal cortex, and midbrain, and they recommend further investigation to determine whether patients who have received CBD treatment in a clinical setting experience the same results as their participants.
