Journal of Psychopharmacology
June 26, 2026
Flavia Giaffone de Paiva Ferreira, João Ariel Bonar Fernandes, Renato Filev et al.
With growing research on the use of psychedelics to treat mental health conditions, greater attention to the psychosocial procedures accompanying substance administration is warranted. This scoping review aims to categorize psychosocial protocols used in research involving psychedelics as psychiatric treatment according to their purpose, denomination, format, therapeutic orientation,...
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
August 29, 2017
Eduardo Ekman Schenberg, Maria Angélica de Castro Comis, João Felipe Morel Alexandre et al.
39 citations
Objective This report documents the phenomenology of the subjective experiences of 22 patients with substance-related disorders who were involved in a treatment combining cognitive–behavioral therapy and hospital sessions with ibogaine in Brazil. Methods Participants underwent a one-to-one semi-structured interview exploring the subjective effects of ibogaine. We employed interpretative...
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
April 1, 2017
Eduardo Ekman Schenberg, Maria Angélica de Castro Comis, João Felipe Morel Alexandre et al.
29 citations
Substance use disorders are important contributors to the global burden of disease, but current treatments are not associated with high rates of recovery. The lack of approved and effective treatments is acutely problematic for psychostimulants like cocaine and crack cocaine. One promising alternative in the treatment of drug dependence in general and psychostimulants in particular is the use...
Archives of Clinical Psychiatry (São Paulo)
2017
Eduardo Ekman Schenberg, Luís Fernando Tófoli, Daniel Rezinovsky et al.
28 citations
Background: The States of Consciousness Questionnaire (SOCQ) was developed to assess the occurrence features of the change in consciousness induced by psilocybin, and includes the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ), developed to assess the ocurrence of mystical experiences in altered states of consciousness. Objective: To translate the SOCQ to Brazilian Portuguese and validate the 30-item...
Comprehensive Psychiatry
November 1, 2016
Paulo César Ribeiro Barbosa, Rick J. Strassman, Dartiu Xavier Da Silveira et al.
104 citations
Hoasca (also called ayahuasca) is a N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) - containing psychedelic brew originally used for magico-religious purposes by Amerindian populations of the Amazon Basin. Recently, Brazilian syncretic churches have helped spread the ritual use of hoasca to Western societies. The aim of this study was to evaluate substance use, and neuropsychological and psychological...
PLoS One
September 30, 2015
Eduardo Ekman Schenberg, João Felipe Morel Alexandre, Renato Filev et al.
115 citations
Ritual use of ayahuasca, an amazonian Amerindian medicine turned sacrament in syncretic religions in Brazil, is rapidly growing around the world. Because of this internationalization, a comprehensive understanding of the pharmacological mechanisms of action of the brew and the neural correlates of the modified states of consciousness it induces is important. Employing a combination of...
Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England)
November 1, 2014
Eduardo Ekman Schenberg, Maria Angélica de Castro Comis, Bruno Rasmussen Chaves et al.
110 citations
Ibogaine is an alkaloid purported to be an effective drug dependence treatment. However, its efficacy has been hard to evaluate, partly because it is illegal in some countries. In such places, treatments are conducted in underground settings where fatalities have occurred. In Brazil ibogaine is unregulated and a combined approach of psychotherapy and ibogaine is being practiced to treat...
World Journal of Biological Chemistry
2013
Eduardo Ferreira de Castro-Neto, Rafael Henrique Da Cunha, Dartiu Xavier Da Silveira et al.
51 citations
AIM: To evaluate changes in neurotransmission induced by a psychoactive beverage ayahuasca in the hippocampus and amygdala of naive rats. METHODS: The level of monoamines, their main metabolites and amino acid neurotransmitters concentrations were quantified using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Four groups of rats were employed: saline-treated and rats receiving 250, 500 and 800...
Archives of Clinical Psychiatry (São Paulo)
2011
Suely Mizumoto, Dartiu Xavier Da Silveira, Paulo César Ribeiro Barbosa et al.
14 citations
BACKGROUND: There is a growing scientific interest in the effects of hallucinogens in general and the religious use of psychoactive brew ayahuasca in Brazil in particular. However, there is not yet a standard instrument used in Brazil to evaluate the effects of hallucinogens. The Hallucinogen Rating Scale (HRS) is a questionnaire widely used in the U.S. and Europe to evaluate the effects of...
European Psychiatry
2010
Evelyn Doering-Silveira, Enrique Lopez, Charles S. Grob et al.
Introduction The use of psychoactive substances has been frequently associated with cognitive impairment. More and more people, including adolescents, use the plant hallucinogen beverage “ayahuasca” throughout the world. Long-term ayahuasca use by adolescents might eventually result in impaired cognitive performance. Objective The objective of this study is to assess neuropsychological...
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
June 1, 2005
Evelyn Doering-Silveira, Charles S. Grob, Marlene Dobkin De Rios et al.
122 citations
Ritual use of ayahuasca within the context of the Brazilian ayahuasca churches often starts during late childhood or early adolescence. Premature access to psychoactive drugs may represent a risk factor for drug misuse. Conversely, religious affiliation seems to play a protective role in terms of substance abuse. The objective of this study was to describe patterns of drug use in a sample of...
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
June 1, 2005
Dartiu Xavier Da Silveira, Charles S. Grob, Marlene Dobkin De Rios et al.
111 citations
Ayahuasca is believed to be harmless for those (including adolescents) drinking it within a religious setting. Nevertheless controlled studies on the mental/ psychiatric status of ritual hallucinogenic ayahuasca concoction consumers are still lacking. In this study, 40 adolescents from a Brazilian ayahuasca sect were compared with 40 controls matched on sex, age, and educational background for...