Marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug in the United States. Heavy marijuana users who attempt to stop using marijuana frequently report sleep disturbance, restlessness, nervousness/anxiety, increased aggression, and appetite changes. We believe that sleep disturbance may pose an enormous hindrance to successful cessation of heavy marijuana use. Surprisingly, despite several subjective reports of sleep disturbance in newly abstinent heavy marijuana users, there have been no studies using objective polysomnographic (PSG) measures validating these subjective reports. Therefore, this study is highly significant and very innovative because in addition to collecting subjective measures of withdrawal symptoms, we will obtain repeated objective measures of sleep architecture using standard PSG procedures. We will determine if there are objective polysomnographic findings of sleep disturbance in marijuana users (N=16) abstaining from drug use for 14 days in an inpatient setting at NIDA-IRP. Sixteen non-drug using controls, will be included for comparison and matched to the marijuana group on age, gender, and sleep-wake pattern. The control group will reside on our GCRC for 3 days. Baseline sleep-wake patterns will be estimated in both groups with actigraphy and sleep log recordings for 5 days prior to withdrawal/admission. The marijuana users will be transferred from NIDA-IRP to the GCRC core sleep lab for PSG recording. We will obtain PSG sleep measures of sleep onset, sleep maintenance, and restlessness at three separate times over 14 days of withdrawal and compare these to PSG measures obtained from the comparison group. Moreover, changes over time will be determined in the marijuana users. We will also determine if marijuana users have delayed sleep phase syndrome, a possible cause of sleep onset difficulty, by measuring dim light melatonin. The long-term goal of this research is to determine if heavy marijuana use is associated with objective sleep abnormalities as measured by polysomnographic procedures. Such findings could lead to new treatments for alleviating the unpleasant symptoms of marijuana withdrawal. For example, delayed sleep phase syndrome, one cause of insomnia, could be treated with light therapy, the same treatment used successfully for treating seasonal affective disorder. New treatments for alleviating the unpleasant symptoms of marijuana withdrawal would likely increase the number of heavy marijuana users who successfully complete treatment.
| Bolla, Karen I; Lesage, Suzanne R; Gamaldo, Charlene E et al. (2010) Polysomnogram changes in marijuana users who report sleep disturbances during prior abstinence. Sleep Med 11:882-9 |
| Bolla, Karen I; Lesage, Suzanne R; Gamaldo, Charlene E et al. (2008) Sleep disturbance in heavy marijuana users. Sleep 31:901-8 |
