Mikael A. Kowal

• PhD
• Chief Scientific Officer at Bedrocan International

Rationale: Cannabis users often claim that cannabis has the potential to enhance their creativity. Research suggests that aspects of creative performance might be improved when intoxicated with cannabis; however, the evidence is not conclusive. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the acute effects of cannabis on creativity. Meth...

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-group...

In this experimental randomized placebo-controlled 4-way crossover trial, we explored the analgesic effects of inhaled pharmaceutical-grade cannabis in 20 chronic pain patients with fibromyalgia. We tested 4 different cannabis varieties with exact knowledge on their [INCREMENT]-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) content: Bedrocan (22....

Introduction There is growing recognition of the potential of cannabis to treat various medical conditions and symptoms, such as chronic pain, spasticity, and epilepsy. However, one of the biggest challenges is the assurance of a standardized cannabis product that contains a consistent amount of its main psychoactive substances delta-9-tetrahydroca...

Objectives: We determined whether adding cannabis to oxycodone for chronic non-cancer pain management could reduce treatment-related adverse effects (AEs) while maintaining effective analgesia. Methods: In this open-label study, fibromyalgia patients aged ≥18 years were randomized to receive 5 mg oxycodone tablets (max. four times/day), 150 mg of...

Background: In humans, the effect of cannabis on ventilatory control is poorly studied, and consequently, the effect of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) remains unknown, particularly when THC is combined with an opioid. We studied the effect of THC on breathing without and with oxycodone pretreatment. We hypothesised that THC causes respiratory depre...

In 2010 a review by Hazekamp and Grotenhermen covered controlled clinical trials of the years 2006-2009 on cannabis-based medicines, which followed the example of the review by Ben Amar (2006). The current review reports on the more recent clinical data available from 2010-2014. A systematic search was performed in the scientific database of PubMed...

In sum, existing research seems to undermine Schier's et al. (2012) suggestion regarding the lack of a relationship between CBD and cognition. Rather, it seems that both cognitive and affective consequences of CBD administration may be mediated by the ACC. However, the lack of clear-cut results renders the extent and nature of this modulation uncle...

Chronic cannabis use has been shown to block long-term depression of GABA-glutamate synapses in the striatum, which is likely to reduce the extent to which endogenous cannabinoids modulate GABA- and glutamate-related neuronal activity. The current study aimed at investigating the effect of this process on striatal dopamine levels by studying the sp...