Amotivational syndrome: less known and diagnosed as a clinical

Abstract

Amotivational syndrome (AS) is a disorder that includes apathy, callousness and antisocial behavior in chronic cannabis users. Some of these effects may generally be seen in other central nervous system depressants as well. Therefore, to make these effects specific for this syndrome is still debated. AS is usually seen among men during puberty. In different studies, the incidence of AS in regular cannabis users has been reported as between 16 to 21%. Although the causes accused in pathophysiology is still controversial, cannabis is the most commonly accused factor in the etiology. In neurobiology of the disease, noradrenergic and dopaminergic systems containing changes in limbic road have been blamed. The diagnosis is based on subjective complaints, and scored by clinical signs and Apathy Evaluation Scale (AES). There are very few experimental data available in treatment of AS, and clinical experience is very limited. By PubMed searching the keywords of ‘amotivational syndrome, cannabis and amotivational syndrome, cannabis and motivation’ from 1960 to December 2013, the published studies examining the relationship between marijuana and AS have been reviewed. We have reached 536 articles, of which 76 include direct relationship with AS, by the end of this search. Non-English articles were excluded from the study.