Associate Professor of Psychiatry; Director, Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery (MIND)
McLean Hospital / Harvard Medical School · Belmont, Massachusetts, USA
Staci Gruber directs the MIND (Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery) program at McLean Hospital, one of the most comprehensive longitudinal neuroimaging studies of cannabis effects in the United States. Her research uses fMRI, structural MRI, and neuropsychological testing to characterize how cannabis affects brain structure and function across different use patterns. Gruber has been particularly influential in distinguishing the effects of recreational cannabis from medical cannabis, finding that medical cannabis patients often show cognitive improvements over time.
Frontiers in Pharmacology · 2016
Prospective study finding that medical cannabis patients showed improvements in executive function, attention, and mood after 3 months of use, contrasting with recreational user data.
DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2016.00355Drug and Alcohol Dependence · 2012
Demonstrated that earlier age of cannabis onset was associated with greater executive function deficits, with those beginning before age 16 showing the most pronounced impairment.
DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2011.09.019