Efectos del consumo de marihuana en escolares sobre funciones cerebrales demostrados mediante pruebas neuropsicológicas e imágenes de neuro-SPE

Abstract

Comparative study based on 565 adolescent school children coming from four schools in the metropolitan area of Santiago, Chile. All were interviewed in order to select a sample that was stratified for sex, class and condition of consumer or non-consumer. The variables of intellectual coefficient and socioeconomical level were maintained constant. With this selection we conformed two groups: 40 consumers exclusively of marihuana and 40 non-consumers. We compared the results obtained in both groups in the neuropsychological tests while the neuroSPECT studies of consumers were compared against a normal database for the same age group. The adolescent consumers of marihuana demonstrate less cognitive capacity related to the process of learning such as attention, concentration, ranking, viso-spatial integration, immediate retention and visual memory. The differences between both groups are statistically significant. The findings of neuroSPECT demonstrate subgenual hypoperfusion bilaterally,