What topics does this cannabis study cover?

This study covers research on: Mental Health, Neuroprotection, Addiction.

Where was this research published?

Published in Addiction (Abingdon, England) on May 6, 2026.

Cannabis use disorder linked to cognitive deficits regardless of use intensity

Cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of cannabis use with cognitive functioning in individuals with a cannabis use disorder: The moderating role of nicotine.

Addiction (Abingdon, England) • May 6, 2026 • Moderately Relevant

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AI Summary

This study examined how cannabis use disorder (CUD) affects cognitive performance and whether tobacco co-use changes this relationship. Researchers compared 130 individuals with CUD to 101 healthy controls and tested their abilities across multiple cognitive domains including attention, memory, and executive functions. Individuals with CUD showed significant impairments in interference control, immediate and delayed recall memory, executive functions, and estimated IQ compared to controls. Interestingly, these cognitive deficits appeared to be independent of how much cannabis participants used or how severe their CUD symptoms were—meaning the problems existed across the spectrum of use intensity.

A particularly surprising finding involved tobacco and cannabis co-use: participants who used both substances together actually showed relatively better working memory performance compared to those using cannabis alone. This counterintuitive result suggests that nicotine's acute cognitive-enhancing properties may temporarily offset cannabis-related working memory impairments. The study also tracked participants for one year and found that lower attention scores at baseline were modestly associated with greater CUD severity at follow-up, though this relationship was weaker than expected.

The research has important practical implications: cannabis use disorder appears to create broad cognitive challenges that aren't simply dose-dependent, meaning even "moderate" cannabis users with CUD may experience meaningful impairments. The tobacco interaction adds complexity to understanding cannabis's cognitive effects and suggests that tobacco cessation counseling for cannabis users may need careful consideration of short-term cognitive trade-offs. These findings underscore the need for more nuanced understanding of how cannabis affects cognition beyond simply examining use quantity.

📄 Original Abstract

Cannabis is among the most widely used psychoactive substances globally and is often consumed alongside tobacco. Cannabis use has been associated with impairments in attention, learning, and memory, whereas nicotine can acutely enhance, but chronically impair, certain cognitive functions. Most studies examine cannabis in isolation, leaving the cognitive impact of tobacco co-use unclear. This study aimed to estimate differences in cognitive performance between individuals with cannabis use disorder (CUD) and healthy controls, to determine whether cognition relates to heaviness of cannabis use or CUD symptom severity, to test moderation by daily tobacco use, and to assess whether baseline cognition was associated with cannabis outcomes one year later. Cross-sectional and one-year longitudinal study. The Netherlands and Texas, USA. A total of 231 participants aged 18-30 participated: 130 with CUD (57.7% male) and 101 controls (43.6% male). Participants completed tasks assessing interference control, attentional bias, sustained attention, executive functions, emotion recognition, delayed recall memory, working memory, and intelligence quotient (IQ). Primary outcomes were cognitive task scores; predictors included heaviness of cannabis use, CUD symptom severity, and daily tobacco use. Compared with controls, individuals with CUD performed worse on interference control (rank biserial correlation [rrank] = 0.080, p < 0.001), immediate recall memory (rrank = 0.089, p = 0.009), delayed recall memory (rrank = 0.090, p = 0.013), executive functions (rrank = 0.089, p = 0.016), and estimated IQ (rrank = 0.081, p < 0.001). Within the CUD group, cognitive performance was unrelated to heaviness of use or CUD severity. Before correction, daily tobacco use moderated the link between CUD severity and working memory (p = 0.011, unstandardized beta [B] = -1.83), with poorer performance observed only among non-tobacco users. Lower attentional bias (p = 0.027, B = -1.78) and sustained attention (p = 0.023, B = -27.88) were modestly associated with greater CUD severity at one-year follow-up. Cannabis use disorder (CUD) appears to be associated with deficits in several cognitive domains independent of use intensity or severity. Tobacco and cannabis co-use appears to be related to relatively better working memory. Attention-related cognition appears to have limited associations with later CUD outcomes.

Paper Type

📄 Research

Publication

Journal: Addiction (Abingdon, England)
Published: May 6, 2026
PMID: 42091089
DOI: 10.1111/add.70457

Authors (6)

Emese Kroon Neuroscience of Addiction (NofA) Lab, Center for Substance Use and Addiction Research (CESAR), Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Nora de Bode Neuroscience of Addiction (NofA) Lab, Center for Substance Use and Addiction Research (CESAR), Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Karis Colyer-Patel Neuroscience of Addiction (NofA) Lab, Center for Substance Use and Addiction Research (CESAR), Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Jia Hua Hsieh Neuroscience of Addiction (NofA) Lab, Center for Substance Use and Addiction Research (CESAR), Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Francesca Filbey Department of Psychology, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, TX, USA.
+1 more authors