Altered neurobehavioral reward response predicts psychotic-like experiences in youth exposed to cannabis prenatally.

Importance: Rates of prenatal cannabis exposure (PCE) are rising with increasingly permissive legislation regarding cannabis use, which may be a risk factor for psychosis. Disrupted reward-related neural circuitry may underlie this relationship.

Objective: To elucidate neural mechanisms involved in the association between PCE and youth-onset psychotic-like experiences by probing correlates of reward anticipation, a neurobehavioral marker of endocannabinoid-mediated dopaminergic function.

Unique Functional Neuroimaging Signatures of Genetic Versus Clinical High Risk for Psychosis.

Background: 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22qDel) is a copy number variant that is associated with psychosis and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Adolescents who are at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR) are identified based on the presence of subthreshold psychosis symptoms.

Occasional cannabis use is associated with higher premorbid functioning and IQ in youth at clinical high-risk (CHR) for psychosis: Parallel findings to psychosis cohorts.

Background: Neurocognitive deficits have been widely reported in clinical high-risk for psychosis (CHR) populations. Additionally, rates of cannabis use are high among CHR youth and are associated with greater symptom severity. Cannabis use has been sometimes shown to be associated with better neurocognition in more progressed psychosis cohorts, therefore in this study we aimed to determine whether a similar pattern was present in CHR.

Assessing evidence supporting cannabis harm reduction practices for adolescents at clinical high-risk for psychosis: a review and clinical implementation tool.

Cannabis use is consistently associated with both increased incidence of frank psychotic disorders and acute exacerbations of psychotic symptoms in healthy individuals and people with psychosis spectrum disorders. Although there is uncertainty around causality, cannabis use may be one of a few modifiable risk factors for conversion to psychotic disorders in individuals with Clinical High Risk for Psychosis (CHR-P) syndromes, characterized by functionally impairing and distressing subthreshold psychotic symptoms. To date, few recommendations beyond abstinence to reduce adverse psychiatric events associated with cannabis use have been made.