@article{ref1,
title="Long-term effects of cannabis on oculomotor function in humans",
journal="Journal of psychopharmacology",
year="2009",
author="Huestegge, L. and Radach, Ralph and Kunert, Hj",
volume="23",
number="6",
pages="714-722",
abstract="Cannabis is known to affect human cognitive and visuomotor skills directly after consumption. Some studies even point to rather long-lasting effects, especially   after chronic tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) abuse. However, it is still unknown whether long-term effects on basic visual and oculomotor processing may exist. In the  present study, the performance of 20 healthy long-term cannabis users without acute THC intoxication and 20 control subjects were examined in four basic visuomotor  paradigms to search for specific long-term impairments. Subjects were asked to perform: 1) reflexive saccades to visual targets (prosaccades), including gap and  overlap conditions, 2) voluntary antisaccades, 3) memory-guided saccades and 4) double-step saccades. Spatial and temporal parameters of the saccades were  subsequently analysed. THC subjects exhibited a significant increase of latency in the prosaccade and antisaccade tasks, as well as prolonged saccade amplitudes in the antisaccade and memory-guided task, compared with the control subjects. The results point to substantial and specific long-term deficits in basic temporal processing of saccades and impaired visuo-spatial working memory. We suggest that these impairments are a major contributor to degraded performance of chronic users in a vital everyday task like visual search, and they might potentially also affect spatial navigation and reading.<p />",
language="",
issn="0269-8811",
doi="10.1177/0269881108091601",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0269881108091601"
}