Introduction: Synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) have become increasingly popular in the last few years, especially among adolescents. Given Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is over represented in patients with substance use across adolescents compared to the general population, the current study aims were two-fold: i) examine cortical thickness, surface area and subcortical volumes in SC users compared to controls, ii) examine the influence of ADHD on cortical thickness, surface area and subcortical volumes in SC users.
Methods: Structural magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired from 28 SC users (15 without ADHD and 13 with ADHD combined type) and 13 controls.
Results: We found that SC users both with and without ADHD groups have significantly reduced cortical thickness compared to controls in areas of the left caudal middle frontal and left superior frontal. In addition, SC users with ADHD also showed reduced cortical thickness in the right precentral and postcentral gyruses. We also found increased right nucleus accumbens volume in SC users without ADHD, but not with ADHD, compared to controls.
Conclusion: These results suggest that similar to cannabis use, SC use has also negative effects on brain morphology and comorbidity of ADHD and substance dependence may show different cortical thickness and subcortical volume alterations than substance use alone.
Keywords: ADHD; Synthetic cannabinoids; cortical thickness; structural imaging; subcortical volume.