Palermo, LianaBianchini, FilippoIaria, GiuseppeTanzilli, AntonioGuariglia, Cecilia2018-09-272018-09-272012-01-03Liana Palermo, Filippo Bianchini, Giuseppe Iaria, Antonio Tanzilli, and Cecilia Guariglia, “Assessing Topographical Orientation Skills in Cannabis Users,” The Scientific World Journal, vol. 2012, Article ID 137071, 7 pages, 2012. doi:10.1100/2012/137071http://hdl.handle.net/1880/108378https://doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/45298The long-term effects of cannabis on human cognition are still unclear, but, considering that cannabis is a widely used substance and, overall, its potential use in therapeutic interventions, it is important to evaluate them. We hypothesize that the discrepancies among studies could be attributed to the specific cognitive function investigated and that skills subserved by the hippocampus, such as the spatial orientation abilities and, specifically, the ability to form and use cognitive maps, should be more compromised than others. Indeed it has been showed that cannabis users have a reduced hippocampus and that the hippocampus is the brain region in which cannabis has the greatest effect since it contains the highest concentration of cannabinoid receptors. To test this hypothesis we asked 15 heavy cannabis users and 19 nonusers to perform a virtual navigational test, the CMT, that assesses the ability to form and use cognitive maps. We found that using cannabis has no effect on these hippocampus-dependent orientation skills. We discuss the implications of our findings and how they relate to evidence reported in the literature that the intervention of functional reorganization mechanisms in cannabis user allows them to cope with the cognitive demands of navigational tasks.Journal Article2018-09-27enCopyright © 2012 Liana Palermo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.https://doi.org/10.1100/2012/137071