Experimental Effects of Cannabis on Pain Sensitivity and Memory: A Scoping Projective Study

The complex and subjective experience of pain makes it a never ending and controversial field for researchers. Apart from the growing body of clinical studies, a history of anecdotal evidence support the use of cannabis for pain relief and memory enhancement across the world, But the drug has been found to also significantly impair memory and other cognitive functions. Based on this, the study experimentally investigated whether cannabis can reduce pain sensitivity, its impact on memory and to determine its sex-dependent effects. The study was carried out at the University of XXX, XXXXXXX. A total of twelve (12) Albino rats were investigated in a pretest, post-test design. The experimental material/instruments include plant materials, novel object recognition test and hot plate apparatus. Using IBM SPSS Statistics and Microsoft Excel, descriptive statistics, one-way within subjects repeated measures ANOVA, and paired sample t-test were employed. Two hypotheses guided this study; and findings showed that effects of cannabis on pain sensitivity were sex-dependent and exposure to cannabis use demonstrated a higher pain tolerance; while rats exposed to cannabis showed more effect on male memory than on female memory. The study therefore concluded that cannabis extract revealed significant sex-dependent and dose-dependent effect on pain sensitivity and memory which can be replicated in humans.