Harmine is a component of the hallucinogenic brew, Ayahuasca, which also contains the psychoactive compound, N, N-dimethyltryptamine. Whether pharmaceutical-grade harmine hydrochloride (HCl) has psychoactive effects, the doses at which these might occur, and the dose-response relationship to side effects and safety in humans are unknown. We conducted a Phase 1, open-label single ascending dose...
Background: In recent years, both meditation and psychedelics have attracted rapidly increasing scientific interest. While the current state of evidence suggests the promising potential of psychedelics, such as psilocybin, to enhance meditative training, it remains equivocal whether these effects are specifically bound to psilocybin or if other classical psychedelics might show synergistic...
Threatening events and stressful experiences can lead to maladaptive memories and related behaviors. Existing treatments often fail to address these issues linked to anxiety/stress-related disorders effectively. This review identifies dose ranges associated with specific actions across various psychedelics. We examined psilocybin/psilocin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD),...
Psychedelics have emerged as promising therapeutics for several psychiatric disorders. Hypotheses around their mechanisms have revolved around their partial agonism at the serotonin 2 A receptor, leading to enhanced neuroplasticity and brain connectivity changes that underlie positive mindset shifts. However, these accounts fail to recognise that the gut microbiota, acting via the gut-brain...
A hallucinogenic brew called ayahuasca has increasingly played a role in drawing people from around the world to the Peruvian Amazon. They come seeking healing and spiritual encounters. As ayahuasca tourism has grown, it has exceeded its designation as mere tourism. Some of the foreigners (mostly Westerners) who come to the jungle for ayahuasca engage in long-term shamanic training with local...
CureusJuly 1, 2024Elliot Hernandez, David Dominguez, Raul Medina-Rioja et al.1 citation
We present the case of a 60-year-old male patient with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) who experienced treatment-related fluctuations (TRF) with a history of ayahuasca consumption. The patient presented to the neurological emergency department without a history of infection (upper respiratory tract or diarrhea) or vaccination in the past four weeks, but 14 days prior, the patient had consumed...
Psychedelics, substances known to alter perception, mood, and consciousness, have been used across various cultures for centuries, often in religious ceremonies to facilitate spiritual experiences. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was used clinically from the 1950s until its ban in 1967. Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in psychedelics for treating mental health disorders such...
The extent of changes in functional connectivity (FC) within functional networks as a common feature across hallucinogenic drug classes is under-explored. This work utilized fMRI to assess the dissociative hallucinogens Psilocybin, a classical serotonergic psychedelic, and Salvinorin-A, a kappa-opioid receptor (KOR) agonist, on resting-state FC in nonhuman primates. We highlight overlapping and...
The global use of certain classical psychedelics has increased in recent years, but little is known about their spectrum of toxicity within Australia. We aim to describe calls to New South Wales Poisons Information Centre relating to exposures to classical psychedelics including lysergic acid diethylamide, psilocybin, N,N-dimethyltryptamine, ayahuasca, mescaline and ibogaine. This is a...
The purpose of this article is to study the 'sacred' plants, diverse from those exclusively medicinal but with an unquestionable ethnobotanical value because, added to their healing properties, they develop mystical experiences and altered states of consciousness analogous to the ecstatic trance. _Psychoactive_ plants have played an important role in medicine, religion, _ritual_ life, and...