Abstract
To explore the nature of the storage deficit produced by marihuana intoxication and to determine if retrieval is state dependent for this drug, 48 subjects were presented 10–20-word lists before receiving an oral dose of marihuana and another 10 lists following drug administration. Subjects studied half of each set of 10 pre-drug and 10 post-drug lists using an overt fixed-rehearsal procedure and half using their normal covert free-rehearsal procedure. On Day 1 of the experiment an immediate-recall test followed each of the 20 lists presented. The marihuana-induced deficit in immediate-recall performance on Day 1 for free-rehearsal lists was not eliminated when the fixed-rehearsal procedure was used. Thus, marihuana intoxication impaired the storage of information even when overt rehearsal in the drug and no-drug states was equated. Three days later (Day 4) subjects returned, half receiving marihuana (Drug Group) and half receiving placebo (Placebo Group). All subjects were then administered delayed recall, recognition, and order tests on the words presented on Day 1. Delayed recall performance was asymmetrically state dependent, whereas delayed recognition performance was not state dependent.
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This research was supported by the van Ameringen Foundation and National Institutes of Mental Health grant 21747.
The authors thank Caroline Bowker, Claire Darley, Glenn Huntsherger, Saul Kantor, Frances Moore, Patricia Murphy, Peggy Murphy, and Margaret Rosen-bloom for their technical assistance.
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Darley, C.F., Tinklenberg, J.R., Roth, W.T. et al. The nature of storage deficits and state-dependent retrieval under marihuana. Psychopharmacologia 37, 139–149 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00437420
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00437420