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Updated: Sep 26, 2025

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Impairing Effect of Emotion on Cognition
Published on: February 1, 2012
The acute effects of cannabidiol on emotional processing and anxiety: a neurocognitive imaging study
Michael A P Bloomfield1,2,3,4,5,6, Yumeya Yamamori7,8, Chandni Hindocha7,9,10
1Translational Psychiatry Research Group, Research Department of Mental Health Neuroscience, Division of Psychiatry, University College London, Maple House, Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T 7NF, UK. m.bloomfield@ucl.ac.uk.
Rationale:
There is growing interest in the therapeutic potential of cannabidiol (CBD) across a range of psychiatric disorders. CBD has been found to reduce anxiety during experimentally induced stress in anxious individuals and healthy controls. However, the mechanisms underlying the putative anxiolytic effects of CBD are unknown.
Objectives:
We sought to investigate the behavioural and neural effects of a single dose of CBD vs. placebo on a range of emotion-related measures to test cognitive-mechanistic models of its effects on anxiety.
Methods:
We conducted a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover, acute oral challenge of 600 mg of CBD in 24 healthy participants on emotional processing, with neuroimaging (viewing emotional faces during functional magnetic resonance imaging) and cognitive (emotional appraisal) measures as well as subjective response to experimentally induced anxiety.
Results:
CBD did not produce effects on brain responses to emotional faces and cognitive measures of emotional processing, or modulate experimentally induced anxiety, relative to placebo.
Conclusions:
Given the rising popularity of CBD for its putative medical benefits, these findings question whether further research is warranted to investigate the clinical potential of CBD for the treatment of anxiety disorders.
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