Intact neurophysiological markers of death denial in ayahuasca veterans
Yair Dor-Ziderman, Jonathan David, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana
November 18, 2024 preprint DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/my9sd (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational cohort |
|---|---|
| Population | Ayahuasca veterans |
| Intervention | Ayahuasca |
| Topics | Ayahuasca |
| Keywords | Denial Neurophysiology |
| Key findings | Ayahuasca veterans' brains exhibit neurophysiological markers of death denial rather than acceptance at an automatic, unconscious level, even though their conscious self-reports show less fear of death. |
Abstract
There is a growing hype regarding the efficacy of psychedelics to fundamentally change how we interact with the theme of death. The underlying evidence consists of anecdotal and self-report data collected in naturalistic and clinical settings suggesting that psychedelics inculcate more acceptance and less fear and anxiety of one’s mortality. However, given hundreds of empirical studies implicating unconscious cognitive processes in mortality avoidance, the current state of the literature is limited and calls for a more robust stratification of the phenomena by collecting implicit behavioral and no-report neurobiologically-informed evidence. Thus, here we implement a previously validated no-report magnetoencephalogram (MEG) visual MisMatch Response (vMMR) paradigm for assessing whether ayahuasca veterans’ brains, relative to previously published data of healthy controls and experienced meditators, display neurophysiological markers of denial or acceptance of death, respectively. Self-report and behavioral measures of fear-of-death were also collected. The results show that ayahuasca veterans’ brains responded to the coupling of death and self-stimuli in a manner indicating denial rather than acceptance. At the same time, the ayahuasca sample displayed less fearful behavioral responses than the general population, and less self-reported fear-of-death than both the general and the meditators sample. Further analyses on the neurophysiological marker of death denial support its construct validity by associating it with less self-reported death acceptance and reduced accessibility to death-related thoughts. Finally, death denial was also associated with greater life satisfaction, supporting the adaptive role of the neural machinery underlying mortality defenses. Overall, our findings provide preliminary evidence that while ayahuasca may alter how humans interact with the theme of death on conscious levels of cognitive processing, on automatic unconscious levels of perceptual self-specific processing, death denial processes appear to remain intact. The limits of psychedelics transformative efficacy are discussed considering current frameworks of psychedelic action and attentional training.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on ayahuasca, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antidepressant effects of a single dose of ayahuasca in patients with recurrent depression: a preliminary report Patients with a depressive disorder | 2015 | Observational study | |
| The Psychedelic State Induced by Ayahuasca Modulates the Activity and Connectivity of the Default Mode Network Experienced subjects | 2015 | Observational cohort | n = 10 |
| Human Psychopharmacology of Hoasca, A Plant Hallucinogen Used in Ritual Context in Brazil Long-term members of a syncretic church that uses hoasca as a psychoactive sacrament... | 1996 | Observational cohort with matched controls | n = 30 |
| Ayahuasca-Assisted Therapy for Addiction: Results from a Preliminary Observational Study in Canada Rural aboriginal population | 2013 | Observational study | |
| Personality, Psychopathology, Life Attitudes and Neuropsychological Performance among Ritual Users of Ayahuasca: A Longitudinal Study Regular ayahuasca users and active controls in non-ayahuasca religions | 2012 | Observational cohort | n = 242 |
Citations in the library
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and 44 more in the library