Publications
A complete list of Dr. Filbey’s publications can be found here.
Media Coverage
UTD study finds marijuana use hurts sleep, memory – Dallas News (2024)
In a recent study published in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas found that adults with cannabis use disorder tended to experience poorer sleep than others. They also performed worse on tests assessing visuospatial memory, or the ability to retain and process information about an object’s appearance and location.
Nicotine and Cannabis Have Offsetting Effects on Resting Brain Connectivity – National Institution on Drug Abuse (2019)
A recent NIDA-supported study underlines the fact that drugs used in combination can produce effects that differ from the sum of the drugs’ individual effects. Researchers showed that users of either nicotine or cannabis had reduced connectivity in several brain networks, but that users of both drugs had connectivity similar to that of users of neither.
Let scientists study the effect of marijuana as we decide on legalization – Dallas Morning News (2018)
Cannabis use is a fact — legal in some places and not in others. Either way, science should be a stronger consideration to inform our policies. Elsewhere, research has yielded insights that would not have been possible without the ability to study substances in a scientific and controlled setting. Consider that red wine and dark chocolate have properties that are desirable in helping to improve cholesterol, and that cocaine is an excellent topical anesthetic for certain medical procedures.
Scientists found something strange when they looked at the brains of stoners – Business Insider (2016)
Marijuana’s official designation as a Schedule 1 drug — something with “no accepted medical use” — means it is pretty tough to study. Yet numerous anecdotal reports, as well as some studies, have linked marijuana with several purported health benefits, from pain relief to helping with certain forms of epilepsy. Still, experts say more rigorous scientific analyses are needed. Use of marijuana, a psychoactive drug, can come with risks, especially in people who may be prone to addiction or mental illness. And now, for the first time, researchers have found a link between daily decade-long weed use and a difference in how the brain processes reward.
Long-term marijuana use linked to changes in brain’s reward system – Fox News (2016)
People who use marijuana for many years respond differently to natural rewards than people who don’t use the drug, according to a new study. Researchers found that people who had used marijuana for 12 years, on average, showed greater activity in the brain’s reward system when they looked at pictures of objects used for smoking marijuana than when they looked at pictures of a natural reward — their favorite fruits.
Long-Term Pot Use Can Alter Your Brain’s Circuitry, Study Finds – Huffington Post (2016)
After years of recreational marijuana use, you might experience changes in the pathway of your brain — also known as the reward system of your brain, a new study says. Simply put, researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas Center For Brain Health found that — over time — the drug can disrupt your brain.
Regular pot habit changes your brain, may even lower your IQ, study says – CNN (2014)
Using marijuana at an early age could have long-term consequences on your brain and it may even lower your IQ, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “The younger the individual started using, the more pronounced the changes,” said Dr. Francesca Filbey, the study’s principal investigator… “Adolescence is when the brain starts maturing and making itself more adult-like, so any exposure to toxic substances can set the course for how your brain ends up.”
Chronic Pot Smoking May Alter Brain, Study Suggests – WebMD (2014)
Long-term marijuana use appears to alter a person’s brain, causing one region associated with addiction to shrink and forcing the rest of the brain to work overtime to compensate, a new study reports. MRI scans revealed that people who use pot for years have a smaller-than-usual orbitofrontal cortex, a region in the frontal lobes of the brain that is involved in decision-making and assessing the expected rewards or punishments of an action, said study author Francesca Filbey, from the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas.
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