Longitudinal fMRI reveals altered developmental trajectories of functional network organisation associated with adolescent cannabis use
- 1Perceptive Inc.
Abstract
Adolescence is a critical period of brain development during which the endocannabinoid system continues to mature. These developmental changes may contribute to age-related differences in the association between cannabis use and large-scale functional network organisation, yet this association remains incompletely characterised. We hypothesised that regular cannabis use would be associated with differential one-year changes in resting-state functional connectivity between adolescents and adults. Resting-state fMRI data at two time points, one year apart, were analysed from 66 participants (31 aged 16-17 years; 35 aged 26-29 years) including 29 with regular cannabis use and 37 age-matched cannabis-naive controls. Seed-to-voxel analyses examined longitudinal changes in functional connectivity across age and cannabis-use groups. Year change, age by user-group interactions were identified in salience and default mode network connectivity, including divergent changes in anticorrelations with medial prefrontal, thalamic, cerebellar and juxtapositional regions. Directionality of effects differed by network and region. Additional main effects of user group were observed for executive control and associative striatal connectivity, with the cannabis-use group showing decreased positive connectivity and reduced anticorrelation, respectively. Changes in functional connectivity were developmentally dissociable and predominantly observed in regions contributing to attentional and transmodal processing. These findings suggest that cannabis may be associated with alterations in the maturational refinement of higher-order neural systems, potentially reflecting age-related differences in neurobiological sensitivity to cannabis exposure. Considering developmental stage may therefore be important for characterising cannabis-related neurobiological differences and may have implications for understanding age-dependent vulnerability to cannabis-related psychiatric outcomes.
Related
- Divergence in neurodivergent brains: mapping the relationship between developmental trajectories in functional connectivity and clinical outcomes
- NET-Associated Transcriptional Signatures and T-Cell Functional States During Allogeneic CAR-γδT-Cell Therapy: A Longitudinal Single-Cell Analysis
- Anatomical and functional organisation of the cholinergic nervous system in the tunicate Botryllus schlosseri
- Development of Neonatal Functional Brain Network Organisation and Its Association with Childhood Neurodevelopmental Outcomes
- A shared functional organisation underlies vascular disease remodelling
BibTeX
@misc{davies2026longitudinal,
title = {{Longitudinal fMRI reveals altered developmental trajectories of functional network organisation associated with adolescent cannabis use}},
author = {E. J. Davies and N. Ertl and T. P. Freeman and A. Borissova and R. Lees Thorne and S. Ofori and K. Petrilli and C. Mokrysz and H. V. Curran and W. Lawn and M. B. Wall},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.20.760368},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.20.760368v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Longitudinal fMRI reveals altered developmental trajectories of functional network organisation associated with adolescent cannabis use
AU - E. J. Davies
AU - N. Ertl
AU - T. P. Freeman
AU - A. Borissova
AU - R. Lees Thorne
AU - S. Ofori
AU - K. Petrilli
AU - C. Mokrysz
AU - H. V. Curran
AU - W. Lawn
AU - M. B. Wall
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/20
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.20.760368
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.20.760368v1
AB - Adolescence is a critical period of brain development during which the endocannabinoid system continues to mature. These developmental changes may contribute to age-related differences in the association between cannabis use and large-scale functional network organisation, yet this association remains incompletely characterised. We hypothesised that regular cannabis use would be associated with differential one-year changes in resting-state functional connectivity between adolescents and adults. Resting-state fMRI data at two time points, one year apart, were analysed from 66 participants (31 aged 16-17 years; 35 aged 26-29 years) including 29 with regular cannabis use and 37 age-matched cannabis-naive controls. Seed-to-voxel analyses examined longitudinal changes in functional connectivity across age and cannabis-use groups. Year change, age by user-group interactions were identified in salience and default mode network connectivity, including divergent changes in anticorrelations with medial prefrontal, thalamic, cerebellar and juxtapositional regions. Directionality of effects differed by network and region. Additional main effects of user group were observed for executive control and associative striatal connectivity, with the cannabis-use group showing decreased positive connectivity and reduced anticorrelation, respectively. Changes in functional connectivity were developmentally dissociable and predominantly observed in regions contributing to attentional and transmodal processing. These findings suggest that cannabis may be associated with alterations in the maturational refinement of higher-order neural systems, potentially reflecting age-related differences in neurobiological sensitivity to cannabis exposure. Considering developmental stage may therefore be important for characterising cannabis-related neurobiological differences and may have implications for understanding age-dependent vulnerability to cannabis-related psychiatric outcomes.
ER -