Abstract
Recent studies suggest that the endocannabinoid system could play an important role in the physiopathology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). There are reports of effective treatment with derivatives of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). The study of the genetic factor associated with psychiatric disorders has made possible an exploration of its contribution to the pharmacological response. However, very little is known about the genetic factor or the prevalence of cannabis use in the Mexican population with OCD. The objective of this study is to compare the prevalence of use and dependence on cannabis in individuals with obsessive-compulsive symptomatology (OCS) with that of individuals with other psychiatric symptoms (psychosis, depression, and anxiety), and to explore the association between genetic risk and use. The study includes a total of 13,130 individuals evaluated in the second stage of the 2016 National Survey of Drug, Alcohol, and Tobacco Use (Encodat 2016), with genetic analysis (polygenic risk scoring) of a subsample of 3,521 individuals. Obsessive symptomatology had a prevalence of 7.2% and compulsive symptomatology a prevalence of 8.6%. The proportion of individuals with OCS who had ever used cannabis was 23.4%, and of those with cannabis dependency was 2.7%, the latter figure higher than that in individuals with other psychiatric symptoms (hypomania, 2.6%; anxiety, 2.8%; depression, 2.3%), except psychosis (5.9%). Individuals with OCS who reported using cannabis had an increased genetic risk for cannabis dependence but not for OCD. We thus cannot know how the increased genetic risk of cannabis dependence in people with OCD is influenced by their pharmacological response to derivatives of THC. The results, however, suggest paths for future studies.
Highlights
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic disorder that affects 1–3% of the population worldwide [1,2,3]
Differences were found in the presence of obsessive-compulsive symptomatology (OCS) between men (42.3%) and women (57.7%), but these were not statistically significant compared with gender differences in those without OCS (?2 = 1.4, p = 0.8620)
Cannabis dependence and use has increased in recent years, as have proposals for the use of THC derivatives as pharmacological agents in areas such as psychiatry and oncology [33,34,35,36]
Summary
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic disorder that affects 1–3% of the population worldwide [1,2,3]. People diagnosed with OCD have a high rate of comorbidity with other disorders: an estimated 75.0% present an additional during their lifetime [6]. OCD is a symptomatological spectrum, which has made it difficult to clarify its etiology, but there are some known risk factors, including a genetic factor and alterations in neurotransmitters and brain function [7]. Genes have recently been discovered that may play an important role in the alteration of glutamatergic signaling [8], and OCD is one of the mental disorders most accompanied by alterations in brain function, mainly in the cortical-striatalthalamic circuit [9,10,11]. Alterations have been reported in the levels of neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, and glutamate [7]
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