221. Dr. Marta DiForte | Cannabis and Schizophrenia - genetics or enviornment?

The Impact of Schizophrenia Genetic Load and Heavy Cannabis Use on the Risk of Psychotic Disorder in the EU-GEI case control and UK Biobank studies.  This article published in Psychology Magazine Apri 2024 studied 114,698 European patients to determine if genetics was associated with cannabis associated psychotic disorder. Regular users of high potency THC (over 10%) had the highest odds of psychotic disorder independent of schizophrenia genetics. Dr. Marta DiForte explains this research.

Dr Marta Di Forti is a Clinical Reader in Psychosis Research at the Dept of Social, Developmental and Genetic Research, Institute of Psychiatry, and Honorary Consultant Adult Psychiatrist, Lambeth EI Community team, South London and Maudsley NHS foundation Trust. She leads the first Cannabis Clinic for patients with Psychotic disorders in UK. She was recently awarded the Royal College of Psychiatrist Researcher of the year prize.  In 2020 she was granted a MRC Senior Research Fellowship to expand her research in the role of cannabis use in psychosis and its underlying biology. With her team she showed for the first time that use of high potency types of cannabis e.g. "skunk" carries a higher risk of psychosis than use of traditional types and that it affects rates of Psychotic disorders across Europe. Though it still remains unclear who are those cannabis use most at risk. Her future work aims to investigate the interaction between cannabis use and genes predisposing to schizophrenia, and how cannabis changes the epigenome.