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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 May 15.
Published in final edited form as: Behav Brain Res. 2017 Feb 20;325(Pt A):44–50. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2017.02.025

Table 1.

Summary of major findings of effects of cannabis and alcohol on developing, adolescent brain

Neuropsychological Neuroanatomical Neurotransmitter Brain response
Cannabis - ⬇ performance in attention, memory, processing speed, and visuospatial functioning; decreased processing speed and executive function (Jacobus et al. 2015)
- ⬇ psychomotor processing, attention, story memory, and planning and sequencing ability; with abstinence, subtle neuropsychological deficits remained [22]
- ⬇verbal learning and working memory improved following 3 weeks of abstinence whereas attention deficits remained [23]
- ⬆ thickness of cortices in left entorhinal cortex; thinner temporal and frontal cortices (Jacobus et al. 2014)

- ⬇hippocampal, prefrontal cortex, and amygdala volumes and larger cerebellum and striatum volumes (Lorenzetti, Solowij, and Yücel 2016)
- ⬇ grey matter volume in amygdala, prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, and striatum (Battistella et al. 2014)
- ⬆activity of frontal and paralimbic regions, in addition to cerebellum (Chang and Chronicle 2007)
- ⬇resting function of cerebellum and frontal regions (Iversen 2003)
Alcohol ⬇ attention and executive function (Thoma et al. 2011)
⬆emotional reactivity, distress tolerance recovered with abstinence (Winward et al. 2014)
-⬇ verbal memory and visuospatial ability, and more post-drinking effects and drug use were associated with slower psychomotor speed [42]
- ⬇ visuospatial performance for females with more past year drinking [43]
- ⬇ sustained attention for males with more past year hangover symptoms [43]
-⬇left cingulate decreased cerebellar volumes and cerebellar activity during reward processing (Lisdahl et al. 2013; Cservenka Jones, and Nage 2015)
-⬆ thickness of cortices in all four lobes (Jacobus et al. 2014)
-⬇volume of left ventra diencephalon, left inferior and middle temporal gyrus, and left caudate and brain stem (Squeglia et al 2014)
- ⬇ grey matter volume in lateral frontal and temporal regions
⬇ rates of white matter growth in corpus callosum and pons [40]
- differences in response in bilateral caudate, orbitofrontal cortex, medial frontal cortex/anterior cingulate and left insula (Dager et al. 2014)

- changes in response for spatial working memory tasks despite adequate performance (Tapert et al. 2004)
- ⬆response in bilateral parietal cortices and diminished response in other regions (left precentral gyrus, bilateral cerebellum) (Tapert et al. 2004)
- ⬆BOLD activation in the bilateral striatum/globus pallidus, left anterior cingulate, bilateral cerebellum, and parahippocampal gyrus extending to the thalamus/substantia nigra; increased BOLD activation in response to alcohol cues in left anterior cingulate cortex and in right cerebellar region, though activation reduced to non-significance following abstinence [41]
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