Cue-induced craving for marijuana in cannabis-dependent adults.

Abstract

Recent interest in the development of medications for treatment of cannabis-use disorders indicates the need for laboratory models to evaluate potential compounds prior to undertaking clinical trials. To investigate whether a cue-reactivity paradigm could induce marijuana craving in cannabis dependent adults, 16 (eight female) cannabis dependent and 16 (eight female) cannabis-naïve participants were exposed to neutral and marijuana-related cues, and subsequent changes in mood, self-reported craving, and physiologic function were assessed. Significant group X cue interactions were found on all three VAS craving indices as well as on the Compulsivity scale of the Marijuana Craving Questionnaire-Brief Form (MCQ-BF). Cannabis dependent individuals responded to marijuana-related cues with significantly increased reports of marijuana craving compared to neutral cue exposure, although there were no cue-induced changes in any of the physiological measures. There were no significant gender differences on any of the measures. These results indicate that marijuana craving can be induced and assessed in cannabis dependent, healthy adults within a laboratory setting, and support the need for further research of the cue reactivity paradigm in the development of medications to treat cannabis-use disorders.

Neural responses to subliminally presented cannabis and other emotionally evocative cues in cannabis-dependent individuals

“…Exposure to cannabis-related cues, such as seeing cannabis or cannabis-related paraphernalia, elicits increased physiological arousal (Wolfling et al 2008), subjective craving (Lundahl and Johanson 2011; Nickerson et al2011, and increased neural activity in reward-related brain regions (Cousijn et al 2012; Filbey et al 2009; Goldman et al 2012. As such, cannabis cues are often defined as conscious triggers for cannabis craving and use, and strategies to avoid and manage exposure to cannabis cues are part of many treatment approaches.…”

Magnitude and duration of cue-induced craving for Marijuana in volunteers with cannabis use disorder

“…Carter and Tiffany (1999) concluded from their meta-analytic review of 41 cue-reactivity studies (none of which focused on marijuana) that unreliable physiologic responses to drug-related cues are due to large variance and lack of cue specificity. Marijuana cue reactivity studies generally have not found cue-induced changes in BP, heart rate, or skin temperature (Gray et al, 2008(Gray et al, , 2011Lundahl and Johanson, 2011;Nickerson et al, 2011;Lundahl and Greenwald, 2015). It may be that, similar to other abused substances, cue-elicited physiologic changes are less reliable than self-reported craving.…”

“…Craving and physiologic responses to these different cues are compared. An extensive literature demonstrates cue-induced craving across various substances including nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, heroin (reviewed by Carter and Tiffany, 1999), and marijuana (Haughey et al, 2008;Wolfling et al, 2008;Gray et al 2008;Lundahl and Johanson, 2011;McRae-Clark et al, 2011;Nickerson et al, 2011;Charboneau et al, 2013;Lundahl and Greenwald, 2015). Cue-induced craving for marijuana has been found to be population-, cue-, and drug-specific.…”

“…Cue-induced craving for marijuana has been found to be population-, cue-, and drug-specific. That is, only marijuana smokers (but not marijuana-naïve controls) responded to marijuana-related cues (but not neutral cues) with increased self-reported craving, and with increased craving only for marijuana but not nicotine (Lundahl and Johanson, 2011). This paradigm has been used to evaluate potential anti-craving medications for cocaine (Kranzler and Bauer, 1992;Robbins et al, 1992;Hersh et al, 1995;Berger et al, 1996;Ehrman et al, 1996;LaRowe et al, 2007;Reid and Thakkar, 2009), nicotine (Reid et al, 2007;Rohsenow et al, 2008;Franklin et al, 2011;Ditre et al, 2012), alcohol (Rohsenow et al, 2000;Hutchison et al, 2001), and marijuana (Lundahl and Greenwald, 2015).…”

Reward Processing in Motivational and Affective Disorders

“…Recent behavioral studies suggest that this is also the case in CUDs: confrontation with cannabis or related objects and contexts (i.e., cues) can trigger craving (e.g., Gray et al, 2011;Lundahl and Johanson, 2011), capture their attention (attentional bias; e.g., Cousijn et al, 2013b;Asmaro et al, 2014), and activate approach tendencies (approach bias; e.g., Field et al, 2006;. In addition, cognitive control-related functions like planning, organizing, problem 86 | solving, decision-making, and working-memory appear to be impaired in individuals with a CUD (Fernandez-Serrano et al, 2011).…”