Marijuana helps patients with schizophrenia, according to new research from Canada.
A study published in the scholarly journal Psychiatry Research found that heavy cannabis users performed better on memory tasks than those who avoided marijuana.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans also revealed better brain function in an area responsible for complex thinking and decision making, reports TruthOnPot.com.
University of Montreal researchers studied 145 patients with a dual diagnosis -- "cannabis dependence" and schizophrenia -- and 14 patients with schizophrenia only. "Our results suggest that emotional memory and prefrontal lobe functioning are preserved in dual-diagnosis patients," the researchers wrote.
Researchers saw no difference between the emotional responses of the two groups during resting states, although patients were evaluated based on emotional memory.
The authors suggest that the better performance of marijuana users could reflect a "more general difference" in memory.
An earlier MRI study found "less impaired brain functioning" in schizophrenic cannabis users as compared to schizophrenic non-users, the authors of the new study noted. Likewise, another study published just this month suggested that some symptoms of schizophrenia could be due to a lack of cannabinoids on the brain.
Almost half of schizophrenic patients also suffer from a substance use disorder (they are, in effect, self medicating for their symptoms). Tobacco, alcohol and cannabis are the most frequently used.
Some scientists, even if the face of statistics that have shown no corresponding rise in rates of schizophrenia with the rise of cannabis use, continue to insist that marijuana causes problems when it comes to schizophrenia. But the latest study only "adds to the growing literature showing that some key functions (negative symptoms, social skills, cognition) are preserved" in patients who use cannabis heavily.
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