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Bar graphs showing average Reaction Time for “congruent” and “incongruent” trials for placebo (black), and THC (gray) condition. Results are displayed separately for “correct,” “incorrect,” and “too late” responses. Error bars represent SE of the mean.
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The error-related negativity (ERN) is a negative event-related potential that occurs immediately after an erroneous response and is thought to reflect human performance monitoring. Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) administration in healthy volunteers has been linked to impaired performance monitoring in behavioral studies, but to date...
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... A spate of recent work has shown modulation of human cognitive control by rewards [3,4], which suggests that OSS may affect cognition through its rewarding properties. Error processing, one hallmark of cognitive control, has been shown to be differentially modulated by neurotransmitter systems [5][6][7][8] involved in the coding of distinct psychological reward components [2,9]. Hence, OSS may affect error processing differentially through specific psychological reward components. ...
... On the other hand, studies on the effects of cannabinoid and opioid signaling on error processing may indicate how 'liking,' in turn, may affect error processing. In general, there is growing evidence that increased cannabinoid and opioid signaling may negatively affect error processing [5,7,14,17]. More specifically, systemically-applied cannabinoid and opioid agonists have been found to decrease neural markers of error processing [5,7,14]. ...
... In general, there is growing evidence that increased cannabinoid and opioid signaling may negatively affect error processing [5,7,14,17]. More specifically, systemically-applied cannabinoid and opioid agonists have been found to decrease neural markers of error processing [5,7,14]. Similar to dopamine, the effects of cannabinoid and opioid agonism on posterror adaptations are not clear cut. ...
Human research has shown interactions between rewards and cognitive control. In animal models of affective neuroscience, reward administration typically involves administering orosensory sugar signals (OSS) during caloric-deprived states. We adopted this procedure to investigate neurophysiological mechanisms of reward-cognitive control interactions in humans. We predicted that OSS would affect neurophysiological and behavioral indices of error processing oppositely, depending on the relative weight of the OSS-induced ‘wanting’ and ‘liking’ components of reward. We, therefore, conducted a double-blind, non-nutritive sweetener-controlled study with a within-subject design. Fasted (16 hr) participants (N = 61) performed a modified Flanker task to assess neurophysiological (error-related negativity [Ne/ERN]) and behavioral (post-error adaptations) measures of error processing. Non-contingent to task performance, we repeatedly administered either a sugar (glucose) or non-nutritive sweetener (aspartame) solution, which had to be expulsed after short oral stimulation to prevent post-oral effects. Consistent with our hypothesis on how ‘liking’ would affect Ne/ERN amplitude, we found the latter to be decreased for sugar compared to aspartame. Unexpectedly, we found post-error accuracy, instead of post-error slowing, to be reduced by sugar relative to aspartame. Our findings suggest that OSS may interact with error processing through the ‘liking’ component of rewards. Adopting our reward-induction procedure (i.e. administering OSS in a state of high reward sensitivity [i.e. fasting], non-contingent to task performance) might help future research investigating the neural underpinnings of reward-cognitive control interactions in humans.
... Despite well-documented psychoactive effects (PE) of THC, early studies investigating the effect on brain function using electroencephalography (EEG), which records electrical brain activity using electrodes affixed to the scalp, have had mixed results. When studying 'resting EEG', where participants did not attend to or respond to specific stimuli or engage in tasks, cannabis intake either had no effect, increased alpha (8-13 Hz) power, decreased alpha power, decreased alpha frequency (Hz) or increased beta (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30) power in resting EEG [16][17][18][19]. Increased alpha power is generally thought to correlate with relaxation whereas beta band activity is thought to index cortical excitation. ...
... Increased alpha power is generally thought to correlate with relaxation whereas beta band activity is thought to index cortical excitation. Error-related negativities (ERNs), which are evoked EEG responses that occur in response to errors in speeded reaction tasks, were reduced in amplitude in the THC vs. placebo condition for regular THC users (at least two uses per week for the last year), although the behavioural performance was not significantly affected [20]. High-potency cannabis reduced magnitude of visually evoked eventrelated potentials in a visual selective attention task [21]. ...
IntroductionCurrent methods to detect recent delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) use cannot objectively quantify its psychoactive effects (PE). The Cognalyzer®, an electroencephalography (EEG)-based method, detects and quantifies the strength of THC-induced PE on a scale from 0 to 100%. This study assesses the relationship between the magnitude of Cognalyzer® PE predictions and reported subjective drug effects for 4-h post-cannabis inhalation.Methods
Seventy-five participants were enrolled in the study. Prior to ad libitum cannabis inhalation, an EEG recording episode was completed. Immediately after inhalation, the Drug Effects Questionnaire (DEQ) was administered and another EEG recording performed. For 25 participants, the study ended. For 50 participants, assessments were repeated at 30-min intervals for 4 h. EEG files were blinded and analyzed using two versions of the Cognalyzer® algorithm. The relationship between the Cognalyzer® PE level results and the DEQ was assessed using generalized linear models and multiple regression.ResultsThere were significant PE increases from pre-cannabis for up to 3.5 h. Mean reports of feeling drug effects were > 0 at all post-inhalation time points (p ≤ 0.024). Furthermore, there were significant relationships between the Cognalyzer® PE and self-reported perception of drug effects (p ≤ 0.001). Subgroup analysis showed that Cognalyzer® PE levels were impacted by cannabis use history, subjective ratings of drug effects, oral fluid THC concentration and the cannabis product inhaled.Conclusion
The findings show that the Cognalyzer® can be used to objectively determine the strength of cannabis psychoactive effects that cannabis products create on consumers and how it changes depending on their experience with cannabis. The Cognalyzer® can be used to conduct scientific consumer research to generate trustworthy informational material about the psychoactive experience of cannabis products. For clinical research, the Cognalyzer® can be used to study the pharmacodynamics of cannabinoids or delivery systems, such as nano-emulsifications.
... In Experiment 2, we tested whether poor metacognition (i.e., performance monitoring) likewise co-occurs with behavioral decrements and the acute administration of THC. Prior work has found acute administration of THC decreased performance monitoring in a simple visual attention task [42,43]. Here we tested whether acute administration of THC likewise disrupts performance monitoring during a working memory task using metacognitive accuracy of task performance [44] as an index of performance monitoring. ...
... To our knowledge, our work provides the first demonstration of THC's effects on mind wandering during a concurrent cognitive task. These finding are consistent with prior work on THC, including task-independent reports of mind wandering in structured interviews [86,87], failure to de-activate the default mode network during task performance [88] (but see [89]), and decreased error monitoring [42,43,90]. Similar to the effects of nicotine cravings [40] and alcohol [41], THC appears to increase mind wandering and other off-task mental states (e.g., "zoning out" or "mind blanking" [55]), and decrease awareness of task performance. ...
With the increasing prevalence of legal cannabis use and availability, there is an urgent need to identify cognitive impairments related to its use. It is widely believed that cannabis, or its main psychoactive component Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), impairs working memory, i.e., the ability to temporarily hold information in mind. However, our review of the literature yielded surprisingly little empirical support for an effect of THC or cannabis on working memory. We thus conducted a study with three main goals: (1) quantify the effect of THC on visual working memory in a well-powered sample, (2) test the potential role of cognitive effects (mind wandering and metacognition) in disrupting working memory, and (3) demonstrate how insufficient sample size and task duration reduce the likelihood of detecting a drug effect. We conducted two double-blind, randomized crossover experiments in which healthy adults (N = 23, 23) performed a reliable and validated visual working memory task (the “Discrete Whole Report task”, 90 trials) after administration of THC (7.5 and/or 15 mg oral) or placebo. We also assessed self-reported “mind wandering” (Exp 1) and metacognitive accuracy about ongoing task performance (Exp 2). THC impaired working memory performance (d = 0.65), increased mind wandering (Exp 1), and decreased metacognitive accuracy about task performance (Exp 2). Thus, our findings indicate that THC does impair visual working memory, and that this impairment may be related to both increased mind wandering and decreased monitoring of task performance. Finally, we used a down-sampling procedure to illustrate the effects of task length and sample size on power to detect the acute effect of THC on working memory.
... Based on this notion of dopaminergic involvement in the generation of the ERN, many pharmacological studies have investigated the effects of drugs on PM and CM. Interestingly, while the ERN shows a high susceptibility to a wide range of pharmacological manipulations, the N2 seems to be more resistant to such interventions (Spronk et al, 2011(Spronk et al, , 2014. ERN amplitudes were found to be enhanced in subjects treated with the indirect dopamine agonist d-amphetamine, but N2 amplitudes remained unaffected (De Bruijn et al, 2004). ...
Performance and conflict monitoring (PM and CM) represent two essential cognitive abilities, required to respond appropriately to demanding tasks. PM and CM can be investigated using event-related brain potentials (ERP) and associated neural oscillations. Namely, the error-related negativity (ERN) represents a correlate of PM, whereas the N2 component reflects the process of CM. Both ERPs originate in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and PM specifically has been shown to be susceptible to gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) A receptor activation. Contrarily, the specific effects of GABA B receptor (GABA B R) stimulation on PM and CM are unknown. Thus, the effects of gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB; 20 and 35 mg/kg), a predominant GABA B R agonist, on behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of PM and CM were here assessed in 15 healthy male volunteers, using the Eriksen–Flanker paradigm in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over study. Electroencephalographic (EEG) data were analyzed in the time and time-frequency domains. GHB prolonged reaction times, without affecting error rates or post-error slowing. Moreover, GHB decreased ERN amplitudes and associated neural oscillations in the theta/alpha1 range. Similarly, neural oscillations associated with the N2 were reduced in the theta/alpha1 range, while N2 amplitude was conversely increased. Hence, GHB shows a dissociating effect on electrophysiological correlates of PM and CM. Reduced ERN likely derives from a GABA B R-mediated increase in dopaminergic signaling, disrupting the generation of prediction errors, whereas an enhanced N2 suggests an increased susceptibility towards external stimuli. Conclusively, GHB is the first drug reported, thus far, to have opposite effects on PM and CM, underlined by its unique electrophysiological signature.
... Diminished PES was observed after acute administration of disinhibiting substances, such as alcohol (Bombeke et al., 2013) or amphetamine (Wardle et al., 2012). In contrast, there were no effects after acute use of cannabis (Spronk et al., 2011(Spronk et al., , 2016Kowal et al., 2015) or benzodiazepines (Riba et al., 2005). PES was heightened (i.e. ...
... A spate of recent work has shown modulation of human cognitive control by rewards [3,4], which suggests that OSS may affect cognition through its rewarding properties. Error processing, one hallmark of cognitive control, has been shown to be differentially modulated by neurotransmitter systems [5][6][7][8] involved in the coding of distinct psychological reward components [2,9]. Hence, OSS may affect error processing differentially through specific psychological reward components. ...
... On the other hand, studies on the effects of cannabinoid and opioid signaling on error processing may indicate how 'liking,' in turn, may affect error processing. In general, there is growing evidence that increased cannabinoid and opioid signaling may negatively affect error processing [5,7,14,17]. More specifically, systemically-applied cannabinoid and opioid agonists have been found to decrease neural markers of error processing [5,7,14]. ...
... In general, there is growing evidence that increased cannabinoid and opioid signaling may negatively affect error processing [5,7,14,17]. More specifically, systemically-applied cannabinoid and opioid agonists have been found to decrease neural markers of error processing [5,7,14]. Similar to dopamine, the effects of cannabinoid and opioid agonism on posterror adaptations are not clear cut. ...
... In the present study, we investigated the impact of cannabis on the monitoring of action errors, that is, on the recognition of discrepancies between expected and executed actions. To date, only one study has addressed the acute effects of cannabis on error monitoring (Spronk et al., 2011), while three other studies have considered the after-effects of chronic cannabis use (Hester et al., 2009;Harding et al., 2012;Fridberg et al., 2013). The present study aimed to contribute to the available knowledge by means of a between-subjects, double-blind, placebo-controlled design that compared the effects of two different doses of THC, in the form of herbal cannabis, on event-related potentials (ERPs) in a population of frequent cannabis users. ...
... In line with this dopamine account of the ERN, the only up-to-date study investigating the impact of acute administration of THC on error monitoring showed a reduced ERN in response to this cannabinoid (16 mg in total), compared to placebo (Spronk et al., 2011). Moreover, cannabis has been identified to alter the neural correlates of error monitoring in the long-term. ...
... Specifically, compared to non-user controls, cannabis users recruit additional cortical activity in areas associated with cognitive control, or other brain regions not associated with this process (Tapert et al., 2007;Hester et al., 2009). In case of the acute effects of cannabis, based on the single study by Spronk et al. (2011), it can be assumed that error monitoring is impaired as a result of administration of THC. ...
... Cognitive changes associated with drug use might be implicated in behavior under influence and possibly contribute to unsafe and risky behavior. It is therefore surprising that performance monitoring, a collection of functions involved with safe and efficient responses to changing environmental demands, has only been scarcely investigated for cannabis (Kowal et al., 2015;Spronk et al., 2011) and not at all for cocaine. The current study sets out to investigate if and how acute administration of cannabis and cocaine affect behavioral and neurophysiological correlates of performance monitoring. ...
... We and others have shown that THC administration in regular users results in a decrease of the ERN (Spronk et al., 2011;Kowal et al., 2015). This is in line with findings from other arousal-reducing drugs, such as alcohol and benzodiazepines which have also been associated with a reduced ERN (Bartholow et al., 2012;De Bruijn et al., 2004;Ridderinkhof et al., 2002;Spronk et al., 2011). ...
... We and others have shown that THC administration in regular users results in a decrease of the ERN (Spronk et al., 2011;Kowal et al., 2015). This is in line with findings from other arousal-reducing drugs, such as alcohol and benzodiazepines which have also been associated with a reduced ERN (Bartholow et al., 2012;De Bruijn et al., 2004;Ridderinkhof et al., 2002;Spronk et al., 2011). The Pe was found to be reduced after THC (Kowal et al., 2015). ...
Drug use is often associated with risky and unsafe behavior. However, the acute effects of cocaine and cannabis on performance monitoring processes have not been systematically investigated. The aim of the current study was to investigate how administration of these drugs alters performance monitoring processes, as reflected in the error-related negativity (ERN), the error positivity (Pe) and post-error slowing. A double-blind placebo-controlled randomized three-way crossover design was used. Sixty-one subjects completed a Flanker task while EEG measures were obtained. Subjects showed diminished ERN and Pe amplitudes after cannabis administration and increased ERN and Pe amplitudes after administration of cocaine. Neither drug affected post-error slowing. These results demonstrate diametrically opposing effects on the early and late phases of performance monitoring of the two most commonly used illicit drugs of abuse. Conversely, the behavioral adaptation phase of performance monitoring remained unaltered by the drugs.
... In the present study, we investigated the impact of cannabis on the monitoring of action errors, that is, on the recognition of discrepancies between expected and executed actions. To date, only one study has addressed the acute effects of cannabis on error monitoring (Spronk et al., 2011), while three other studies have considered the after-effects of chronic cannabis use (Hester et al., 2009;Harding et al., 2012;Fridberg et al., 2013). The present study aimed to contribute to the available knowledge by means of a between-subjects, double-blind, placebo-controlled design that compared the effects of two different doses of THC, in the form of herbal cannabis, on event-related potentials (ERPs) in a population of frequent cannabis users. ...
... In line with this dopamine account of the ERN, the only up-to-date study investigating the impact of acute administration of THC on error monitoring showed a reduced ERN in response to this cannabinoid (16 mg in total), compared to placebo (Spronk et al., 2011). Moreover, cannabis has been identified to alter the neural correlates of error monitoring in the long-term. ...
... Specifically, compared to non-user controls, cannabis users recruit additional cortical activity in areas associated with cognitive control, or other brain regions not associated with this process (Tapert et al., 2007;Hester et al., 2009). In case of the acute effects of cannabis, based on the single study by Spronk et al. (2011), it can be assumed that error monitoring is impaired as a result of administration of THC. ...
Cannabis has been suggested to impair the capacity to recognize discrepancies between expected and executed actions. However, there is a lack of conclusive evidence regarding the acute impact of cannabis on the neural correlates of error monitoring. In order to contribute to the available knowledge, we used a randomized, double-blind, between-groups design to investigate the impact of administration of a low (5.5 mg THC) or high (22 mg THC) dose of vaporized cannabis vs. placebo on the amplitudes of the error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe) in the context of the Flanker task, in a group of frequent cannabis users (required to use cannabis minimally 4 times a week, for at least 2 years). Subjects in the high dose group (n =18) demonstrated a significantly diminished ERN in comparison to the placebo condition (n =19), whereas a reduced Pe amplitude was observed in both the high and low dose (n=18) conditions, as compared to placebo. The results suggest that a high dose of cannabis may affect the neural correlates of both the conscious (late), as well as the initial automatic processes involved in error monitoring, while a low dose of cannabis might impact only the conscious (late) processing of errors.
... In all these conditions, the dysfunction is characterised by hypoactivity in the error-related network, most consistently in the dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus (dACC). While relatively few studies have investigated error processing in chronic cannabis users (see Spronk et al., 2011 for a study of the acute effects on non-users), the typical pattern of hypoactivity in the dACC (along with other key error-related regions such as the insula) has recently been demonstrated (Hester et al., 2009). Thus, there is evidence to suggest that performance monitoring is impaired in chronic cannabis users, although the consequence for adaptive post-error behaviour remains unclear. ...
