ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Adolescent and Young Adult Psychiatry
This article is part of the Research TopicCannabis use and neurocognitive functioning in adolescentsView all 5 articles
Neurocognitive Outcomes in Adolescents with and without Four Weeks of Cannabis Abstinence: A Randomized Clinical Trial using Contingency Management
Provisionally accepted
Randi Schuster1,2*
Meghan A Costello1,2*
Kevin Potter1,2
Matteo Torquati3
Jodi M Gilman1,2
A. Eden Evins1,2- 1Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Psychiatry, Boston, United States
- 2Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States
- 3University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, United States
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Abstract Background: As adolescent cannabis use becomes more common, questions remain about the potential for neurocognitive recovery after stopping cannabis use. Method: This study examined whether short-term abstinence from cannabis leads to cognitive improvements. A total of 238 adolescents (ages 13–19; 51% female; 55% White, 18% Black, 9% Asian, 18% other races) from Greater Boston participated, including 154 adolescents who regularly used cannabis (CB) and 84 adolescents with no cannabis use (NU). Participants who used cannabis were randomized to incentivized abstinence (CB-Abst) or a non-contingent monitoring control (CB-Mon). Non-users completed four weeks of monitoring (NU). Participants completed tests of executive function, memory, and attention weekly for four weeks. Results: At baseline, CB adolescents demonstrated worse verbal memory and processing speed than NU on (p < .006). CB-Abst performance was similar to that of the NU group at week 4. At week 4, those in the CB-Abst group showed greater improvements in inhibitory control compared to the CB-Mon group (β = -10.9, p = .037). There were no significant differences between CB groups in memory or attention task performance at week 4. Exploratory analyses revealed modest gains across all groups in some tasks. Discussion: Brief cannabis abstinence may be associated with improvements in executive function among adolescents, supporting the idea of neurocognitive recovery, which has important implications for treatment, prevention, and public health policies. Keywords: adolescence, cannabis, executive function, cognitive recovery, abstinence intervention
Keywords: adolescence, Cannabis, Executive Function, cognitive recovery, abstinence intervention
Received: 12 Oct 2025; Accepted: 04 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Schuster, Costello, Potter, Torquati, Gilman and Evins. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Randi Schuster
Meghan A Costello
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