The DOI matches its Crossref record; 58 of the 58 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Cannabis Use Is Quantitatively Associated with Nucleus Accumbens and Amygdala Abnormalities in Young Adult Recreational Users
Open accessAbstract
Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States, but little is known about its effects on the human brain, particularly on reward/aversion regions implicated in addiction, such as the nucleus accumbens and amygdala. Animal studies show structural changes in brain regions such as the nucleus accumbens after exposure to Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol, but less is known about cannabis use and brain morphometry in these regions in humans. We collected high-resolution MRI scans on young adult recreational marijuana users and nonusing controls and conducted three independent analyses of morphometry in these structures: (1) gray matter density using voxel-based morphometry, (2) volume (total brain and regional volumes), and (3) shape (surface morphometry). Gray matter density analyses revealed greater gray matter density in marijuana users than in control participants in the left nucleus accumbens extending to subcallosal cortex, hypothalamus, sublenticular extended amygdala, and left amygdala, even after controlling for age, sex, alcohol use, and cigarette smoking. Trend-level effects were observed for a volume increase in the left nucleus accumbens only. Significant shape differences were detected in the left nucleus accumbens and right amygdala. The left nucleus accumbens showed salient exposure-dependent alterations across all three measures and an altered multimodal relationship across measures in the marijuana group. These data suggest that marijuana exposure, even in young recreational users, is associated with exposure-dependent alterations of the neural matrix of core reward structures and is consistent with animal studies of changes in dendritic arborization.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The check wasn’t confident either way, so it gives no verdict — never disputed.
In the citing paper
“Adolescent rats treated with THC also have fewer synaptic contacts during adulthood and reduced efficiency of hippocampal networks 75”
From Association of Cannabis Use in Adolescence and Risk of Depression, Anxiety, and Suicidality in Young Adulthood (2019) · cites this paper as [75]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn the citing paper
“We provide a weak recommendation against the use of cannabinoids in neuropathic pain, mainly because of negative results, potential misuse, abuse, diversion and long term mental health risks particularly in susceptible individuals.66–71”
From Pharmacotherapy for neuropathic pain in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis (2015) · cites this paper as [70]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Hamilton, M. (1960) · Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry · doi:10.1136/jnnp.23.1.56 · Cited by 32,817 · cited 5×
“All participants also completed the State Trait Anxiety Inventory Form (STAI; Spielberger et al., 1983) to assess anxiety, the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D; Hamilton, 1960) to assess depression, and the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI; Gosling et al., 2003) to assess personality characteristics.”
BackgroundMethodInfluential(1970) · Cited by 24,983
SAUNDERS, J. B., AASLAND, O. G., BABOR, T. F., DE LA FUENTE, J. R., & GRANT, M. (1993) · Addiction · doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.1993.tb02093.x · Cited by 13,597 · cited 1×
“All participants completed the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT; Saunders et al., 1993) to check for problem drinking; any potential participant scoring above an 8 was excluded from inclusion in the final cohort of matched participants.”
MethodVoxel-Based Morphometry—The Methods
Ashburner, J., & Friston, K. J. (2000) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1006/nimg.2000.0582 · Cited by 8,676 · cited 1×
“In voxel-based morphometry analyses, gray matter density is compared across the entire brain at every voxel, allowing the detection of differences in small or large regions, which can be topographically specified with high accuracy (Ashburner and Friston, 2000) even though all brains have been normalized.”
Fischl, B., Salat, D. H., Busa, E., Albert, M., Dieterich, M., Haselgrove, C., van der Kouwe, A., Killiany, R., Kennedy, D., Klaveness, S., et al. (2002) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/s0896-6273(02)00569-x · Cited by 8,610
Self-citationA very brief measure of the Big-Five personality domains
Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., & Swann, W. B. (2003) · Journal of Research in Personality · doi:10.1016/s0092-6566(03)00046-1 · Cited by 8,307 · cited 5×
“All participants also completed the State Trait Anxiety Inventory Form (STAI; Spielberger et al., 1983) to assess anxiety, the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D; Hamilton, 1960) to assess depression, and the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI; Gosling et al., 2003) to assess personality characteristics.”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialNonparametric permutation tests for functional neuroimaging: A primer with examples
Nichols, T. E., & Holmes, A. P. (2002) · Human Brain Mapping · doi:10.1002/hbm.1058 · Cited by 6,256
Koob, G. F., & Volkow, N. D. (2010) · Neuropsychopharmacology · doi:10.1038/npp.2009.110 · Cited by 5,340 · cited 1×
“Converging findings in the addiction literature implicate these regions as being important to the impact that marijuana may have on the brain (for review, see Koob and Volkow, 2010).”
BackgroundBlood, A. J., & Zatorre, R. J. (2001) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.191355898 · Cited by 2,814 · cited 2×
“First, the nucleus accumbens and amygdala have been implicated in non-drug reward processing (Blood and Zatorre, 2001; Breiter et al., 2001), as well as with the euphoria associated with the rewarding effects of drugs (Breiter et al., 1997; Gálvez-Buccollini et al., 2008; Gilman et al., 2008).”
BackgroundSelf-citationLimbic Activation During Cue-Induced Cocaine Craving
Childress, A. R., Mozley, P. D., McElgin, W., Fitzgerald, J., Reivich, M., & O’Brien, C. P. (1999) · American Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1176/ajp.156.1.11 · Cited by 1,513 · cited 1×
“Our observations indicate that such changes may occur before dependence, which is intriguing in the context that the amygdala appears to play an important role in drug craving (Breiter et al., 1997; Childress et al., 1999; Bonson et al., 2002).”
Background
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- First MB Spitzer Robert L Gibbon Miriam Williams Janet B.W (2002) Structured clinical interview for DSM-IV-TR axis I disorders, research version, patient edition (SCID-I/P) (Biometrics Research, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York).
- 10.1176/appi.neuropsych.18.3.318 · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Pharmacotherapy for neuropathic pain in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Finnerup, N. B., Attal, N., Haroutounian, S., McNicol, E., Baron, R., Dworkin, R. H., Gilron, I., Haanpää, M., Hansson, P., Jensen, T. S., et al. (2015) · The Lancet Neurology · doi:10.1016/s1474-4422(14)70251-0 · Cited by 3,980
Gobbi, G., Atkin, T., Zytynski, T., Wang, S., Askari, S., Boruff, J., Ware, M., Marmorstein, N., Cipriani, A., Dendukuri, N., et al. (2019) · JAMA Psychiatry · doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2018.4500 · Cited by 914
Medical Marijuana for Treatment of Chronic Pain and Other Medical and Psychiatric Problems
Hill, K. P. (2015) · JAMA · doi:10.1001/jama.2015.6199 · Cited by 508
Scott, J. C., Slomiak, S. T., Jones, J. D., Rosen, A. F. G., Moore, T. M., & Gur, R. C. (2018) · JAMA Psychiatry · doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2018.0335 · Cited by 391
Rosenberg, E. C., Tsien, R. W., Whalley, B. J., & Devinsky, O. (2015) · Neurotherapeutics · doi:10.1007/s13311-015-0375-5 · Cited by 292
Metadata
- Authors
- Gilman, J. M., Kuster, J. K., Lee, S., Lee, M. J., Kim, B. W., Makris, N., van der Kouwe, A., Blood, A. J., & Breiter, H. C.
- Affiliations
- Northwestern University (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- Venue
- The Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Society for Neuroscience
- Published
- 2014-04-16
- Volume
- 34
- Issue
- 16
- Pages
- 5529-5538
- ISSN
- 0270-6474 (ISSN-L)
- 1529-2401
- PMC
- PMC3988409
- OpenAlex
- W2030725437
- Cited by
- 250
- References
- 58
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 26 · 2017: 26 · 2016: 32 · 2015: 36 · 2014: 11
- FWCI
- 25.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Northwestern University
- Office of National Drug Control Policy (DABK39-03-C-0098)
- National Institutes of Health
- U.S. Public Health Service (NIDA 026104, NIDA 14118, NIDA 026002, NIDA 027804, NINDS 052368, NIDA 034093)
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (K01DA034093)
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (052368)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology (medical) › Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychedelics and Drug Studies
- Keywords
- cannabis use, nucleus accumbens, amygdala, gray matter density, brain volume, brain shape, reward systems, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, young adults, subcallosal cortex, dendritic branching
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Amygdala, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Marijuana Smoking, Nucleus Accumbens, Organ Size, Severity of Illness Index, Young Adult
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
