Ayahuasca is a beverage obtained from decoctions of the liana Banisteriopsis caapi plus the shrub Psychotria viridis. This beverage contains a combination of monoamine oxidase inhibitors (harmine, harmaline, and tetrahydroharmine) and N,N-dimethyltryptamine, the main substance responsible for its visionary effect. The ritualistic use of ayahuasca is becoming a global phenomenon. Most members of...
A Ayahuasca é um psicodélico utilizado em um contexto ritualístico e por religiões sincréticas brasileiras. Os usuários relatam experiências como aparecimento de imagens visuais com olhos fechados, indução de um estado de introspecção e reflexão, indução de memórias, desencadeamento de emoções intensas, insights sobre preocupações pessoais e cura de males físicos e psicológico. Neste contexto,...
In a recent article in this journal, Dos Santos et al. (2018) report a case of ayahuasca use by a man with aphantasia. This account is the first such report of the use of a psychedelic agent by someone with aphantasia. Surprisingly, the case, SE, reported an improvement in their visual imagery following one particular instance of ayahuasca use. In support of Dos Santos et al.’s (2018) favored...
Ayahuasca is a beverage used in religious rituals of indigenous and nonindigenous groups, and its therapeutic potential has been investigated. Ayahuasca is obtained by decoction of the Banisteriopsis caapi that contains β‐carbolines (harmine, harmaline, and tetrahydroharmine) plus Psychotria viridis that contains N , N ‐dimethyltryptamine. Although plants used in folk medicine are recognized as...
OBJECTIVE: The incidence rate of major depression in adolescents reaches approximately 14%. This disorder is usually recurrent, without remission of symptoms even after pharmacological treatment, and persists throughout adult life. Since the effects of antidepressants take approximately 2 weeks to begin, new pharmacological therapies are under continuous exploration. Recent evidence suggests...
The international distribution and commodification of ayahuasca has created virtual communicative realms in the Internet in which members intensively exchange personal narratives, advertisements, and beliefs about ayahuasca and its reputed native background. Common consumption standards and beliefs about ayahuasca have developed among western ayahuasca drinkers who are often only loosely...
BackgroundResearch suggests that mindfulness-based interventions may improve mindfulness-related capacities (e.g., decentering, non-judging, and non-reacting) and emotion regulation. Previously, our group reported that ayahuasca could be a potential analogue of mindfulness practice. The main aim of the current study was to examine the effects of ayahuasca on emotional regulation and...
Open problems abound in the theory of complex networks, which has found successful application to diverse fields of science. With the aim of further advancing the understanding of the brain's functional connectivity, we propose to evaluate a network metric which we term the geodesic entropy. This entropy, in a way that can be made precise, quantifies the Shannon entropy of the distance...
This research is an ethnography of the brewing ritual of the beverage known as ayahuasca performed by a group called Irmandade Beneficente Natureza Divina, which is inserted in a wider process of transformations of the urban use of this substance in the last decades.Using an extended set of photographs taken in the feitio, the name given to the decoction making process, I discuss how the...
This article focuses on the therapeutic potential ascribed to ayahuasca by users in the Czech Republic. Following an online survey, the fieldwork among users of ayahuasca was carried out from November 2015 to December 2016. The research sample consisted of 46 persons (23 women and 23 men), who took part at least once in some type of ayahuasca ritual and/or were the facilitators of the ayahuasca...
Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew traditionally used in shamanistic and vegetalistic rituals and has recently received lot of attention due to potential cognitive benefits. Ayahuasca effects are caused by the synergistic interaction of β-carbolines (harmine, harmaline and tetrahydroarmine) contained in Banisteriopsis caapi stalks combined with the N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) from Psychotria...
Objectif L’ayahuasca est un breuvage psychedelique originaire du bassin amazonien et utilise dans des rites chamaniques. Il consiste en l’ingestion successive de 2 decoctions vegetales, l’une ayant un effet inhibiteur de la monoamine oxydase (IMAO), l’autre contenant de la dimethyltryptamine (DMT) responsable des effets hallucinogenes. Son utilisation en Europe est limitee par la reglementation...
RATIONALE: Ayahuasca is a psychotropic plant tea from South America used for religious purposes by indigenous people of the Amazon. Increasing evidence indicates that ayahuasca may have therapeutic potential in the treatment of mental health disorders and can enhance mindfulness-related capacities. Most research so far has focused on acute and sub-acute effects of ayahuasca on mental...
Ayahuasca is a psychoactive concoction prepared from the plants Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis which are used ancestrally by Amazonian Indian populations and more recently, by Christian religious groups in Brazil and other countries. The aims of the present study were to identify the effects of ayahuasca on zebrafish embryo development and neurobehavior. Toxicity and developmental...
Resumo Procuramos, neste artigo, trazer alguns apontamentos sobre elementos que permeiam as redes neoxamânicas contemporâneas, tais como: trânsito e deslocamento de pessoas e artefatos, tradição e autenticidade, patrimônio, tecnologias xamânicas, peregrinação e turismo religioso, intercâmbio e alianças entre grupos diversos, bem como o estabelecimento de relações de “mercado”, disputas e...
Aphantasia ("blind imagination") is a poorly described condition with an uncertain etiology, characterized by reduced or lack of voluntary visual imagery. Preliminary evidence in humans suggests that hallucinogenic or psychedelic drugs that act as agonists of cortical 5-HT2A receptors [lysergic acid diethylamide, psilocybin, and dimethyltryptamine (DMT)] enhance visual imagery. Interview and...
El creciente interés de los occidentales por la bebida psicotrópica ayahuasca y la participacion en rituales exóticos ha llevado en las últimas décadas a la multiplicación de los “centros chamánicos” en la Amazonía peruana. Entre estos, el centro Takiwasi es una comunidad terapéutica que acoge cada año a cientos de clientes nacionales y extranjeros. Esta institución, creada por un médico...
O artigo analisa uma modalidade singular de educação mediada pelo consumo da ayahuasca, bebida feita de plantas de origem amazônica utilizada no contexto ritual da religião do Santo Daime. Em função das diversas aprendizagens que engendram, essas plantas são consideradas pelos adeptos como professoras. Mas, como compreender essa educação cujo mestre não é um humano e sim uma planta? Que saberes...
This is the second of a three-part account of a visit to Iquitos at the time of the New Millennium by the narrator, who lives in Colombia and has been drinking yajé (ayahuasca) with its indigenous shamans. For a book he is writing about the subject, decides to investigate the rituals in Peru. It is in the form of a travelogue divided into vignettes: his voyage upriver from Leticia to Iquitos,...
Abstract Background Recent open-label trials show that psychedelics, such as ayahuasca, hold promise as fast-onset antidepressants in treatment-resistant depression. Methods To test the antidepressant effects of ayahuasca, we conducted a parallel-arm, double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial in 29 patients with treatment-resistant depression. Patients received a single dose of either...