A new study has found that repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) benefits individuals with cannabis use disorder and schizophrenia by reducing intake by up to 60%.
Indiana may be getting closer to legalizing medical marijuana.
Health bosses have given the green light to Epidyolex, which can help treat the symptoms of a rare genetic disease affecting around one in 10,000 people.
The term schizophrenia describes a group of multifaceted psychiatric conditions causing significant impairment of the quality of life of affected patients. Although multiple pharmacological treatment options exist, e.g. first- or second-generation antipsychotics, these therapeutics often cause disturbing side effects, such as extrapyramidal symptoms, prolactin increase, sexual dysfunction and/or metabolic syndrome.However, cannabidiol is a promising candidate as an effective and mechanistically different antipsychotic treatment with a favourable side-effect profile. We therefore conclude that further studies are urgently needed to clarify the antipsychotic effects and safety profile of cannabidiol, and to fully explore its potential antipsychotic mechanism.
Ben Sessa is a Somerset psychiatrist with a passion for getting psychedelics tested for medical purposes. He explains that the side effects of current antipsychotics can be off putting to people taking medication
Literature on the relationship of cannabis use and cognition in schizophrenia provides the paradoxical view that cannabis use is sometimes linked with less severe impairment in neurocognition. This paper explored the possibility that this is a reflection of a dose related response between lifetime cannabis use and two forms of cognition, neurocognition and metacognition, in schizophrenia. It was hypothesized that three groups of patients could be differentiated, those with (1) little to no cannabis use with poor levels of cognition, (2) moderate cannabis use and relatively better levels of cognition and (3) high cannabis use with relatively poorer levels of cognition.