Peak THC Responses and Fixed-Time Memory Scores Were Different Statistical Summaries
The oral-THC study summarized several effects by each participant’s peak change from baseline. Its verbal-memory measurement used a fixed assessment time, so the endpoints were not aligned in the same way.
Peak summaries addressed variable timing
The investigators used peak changes for subjective high, dissociative and psychotomimetic measures, and heart rate. Their rationale was that individual differences in the timing of THC effects could obscure response magnitude when everyone was compared at the same clock time.
A peak is not a common moment across participants
A participant-level maximum can occur at different times for different people. Comparing those maxima concerns response magnitude under the sampling schedule; it does not establish that everyone experienced the effect simultaneously. It also differs from the area under an effect-time curve or the duration of a response.
The memory comparison answered another timing question
Verbal learning and recall were assessed once, 80 minutes after administration. Consequently, a difference between the subjective-high finding and the memory null should not automatically be attributed to one mechanism. The endpoints differed both in what they measured and how time entered the analysis. The study’s selected sex difference in high, alongside other null interactions, remains endpoint-specific. An interpretation should preserve that design rather than treating every reported outcome as a simultaneous measurement at a shared THC peak.
Related analysis: the trial’s main results and limitations.
