A study conducted by researchers at the Center for BrainHealth at UT Dallas has examined how cannabis use affects sleep patterns in adults with chronic pain. The research, titled "Interactions Between Cannabis Use and Chronic Pain on Sleep Architecture: Findings from In-Home EEG Recordings," was published in Neurotherapeutics.
The study involved 60 adult participants who recorded their sleep using electroencephalogram (EEG) devices at home over seven consecutive nights, totaling 339 nights of data. Of the participants, about one-third reported experiencing chronic pain, and nearly half reported using cannabis.
Researchers measured several aspects of sleep, including total sleep time, how long it took to fall asleep, deep slow-wave sleep (SWS), rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep, and the number of times sleep was disrupted.
Findings showed that cannabis use among those with chronic pain may increase SWS. This stage of deep sleep is important for physical recovery and immune function and may indirectly help relieve pain. However, this benefit came with a reduction in REM sleep, which is important for emotional health and memory processing. The study also found that while cannabis might initially boost SWS, these effects lessen with ongoing use.
"For the first time in an in-home setting, we were able to observe how cannabis use and chronic pain interact to influence the brain's sleep stages," said Francesca Filbey, PhD, director of the Neuroimaging of Reward Dynamics Lab. "What we found was not a simple story of benefit or harm, but a complex pattern that highlights the need for personalized approaches to sleep and pain management."
"Although those who use cannabis often report subjective improvements to their sleep, our study looked at the objective changes to a specific stage of sleep important for pain regulation," said lead author Tracy Brown, a UT Dallas cognition and neuroscience PhD student. "Our results indicated that the potential pain-alleviating benefit from increasing SWS comes with the side effect of reducing REM sleep, which may hinder other aspects of quality of life. This nuanced understanding of changes to sleep architecture may help clinicians and individuals who use cannabis understand the full picture of medicinal cannabis use."
