Frontiers in Pharmacology
2016
Petra Bokor, Ede Frecska, Michael Winkelman
Ayahuasca is an Amazonian psychoactive brew of two main components. Its active agents are β-carboline and tryptamine derivatives. As a sacrament, ayahuasca is still a central element of many healing ceremonies in the Amazon Basin and its ritual consumption has become common among the mestizo populations of South America. Ayahuasca use amongst the indigenous people of the Amazon is a form of...
PLoS One
December 30, 2015
Vanessa Manchim Favaro, Maurı́cio Yonamine, Juliana Carlota Kramer Soares et al.
33 citations
Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic beverage that combines the action of the 5-HT2A/2C agonist N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) from Psychotria viridis with the monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) induced by beta-carbonyls from Banisteriopsis caapi. Previous investigations have highlighted the involvement of ayahuasca with the activation of brain regions known to be involved with episodic memory,...
Anthropologia integra
December 15, 2015
Miroslav Horák, Romana Lukášová, Šárka Vosáhlová
6 citations
Z ayahuasky, klíčového prvku tradiční domorodé medicíny peruánské Amazonie, se stal globální fenomén. Sezení, během něhož je užívána tato psychoaktivní látka, lze v současné době absolvovat nejen v prostředí jihoamerického deštného pralesa, ale také v České republice. Vzhledem k tomu, že je v ČR ayahuasca pro svůj obsah N, N-dimethyltriptaminu dle nařízení vlády č. 463/2013 Sb., O seznamech...
Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology
December 11, 2015
Rafael Faria Sanches, Flávia de Lima Osório, Rafael G. Dos Santos et al.
468 citations
Ayahuasca is an Amazonian botanical hallucinogenic brew which contains dimethyltryptamine, a 5-HT2A receptor agonist, and harmine, a monoamine-oxidase A inhibitor. Our group recently reported that ayahuasca administration was associated with fast-acting antidepressive effects in 6 depressive patients. The objective of the present work was to assess the antidepressive potentials of ayahuasca in...
Psychopharmacology
November 27, 2015
Joaquim Soler, Matilde Elices, Alba Franquesa et al.
212 citations
BackgroundAyahuasca is a psychotropic plant tea used for ritual purposes by the indigenous populations of the Amazon. In the last two decades, its use has expanded worldwide. The tea contains the psychedelic 5-HT2A receptor agonist N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), plus β-carboline alkaloids with monoamine-oxidase-inhibiting properties. Acute administration induces an introspective dream-like...
Toxicology Letters
November 17, 2015
Julia Dinger, Campbell Woods, Simon D. Brandt et al.
New psychoactive substances (NPS) are not tested for their cytochrome P450 (CYP) inhibition potential before consumption. Therefore, this potential was explored for tryptamine-derived NPS (TDNPS) including alpha-methyl tryptamines (AMTs), dimethyl tryptamines (DMTs), diallyl tryptamines (DALTs), and diisopropyl tryptamines (DiPTs) using test substrates preferred by the Food and Drug...
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...
Drug and Alcohol Dependence
September 3, 2015
Joseph J Palamar, Silvia S Martins, Mark K Su et al.
Background: In recent years, there has been an increase in emergence and use of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) in the US and worldwide. However, there is little published epidemiological survey data estimating the prevalence of use in the US. Method: Data on self-reported NPS use came from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (2009-2013), a national representative sample of...
River teeth
September 1, 2015
Nathan Thornburgh
The Root of All Things Nathan Thornburgh (bio) Halfway through our hour-long Skype call, Carlos Tanner warns me that he is going to “cross over.” He means that our conversation is about to leap from things that make sense in this world—how his new baby is sleeping, how many students are enrolling in his school—into things that only make sense if you are very deep in the world of ayahuasca, a...
Journal of Psychopharmacology
September 1, 2015
Peter S. Hendricks, Matthew W Johnson, Roland R. Griffiths
107 citations
Hendricks et al. (2015) found that having ever used any classic psychedelic substance—namely, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ayahuasca, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), mescaline, peyote or San Pedro, or psilocybin—was associated with a significantly reduced likelihood of past month psychological distress (weighted OR = . 81 (. 72–. 91)), past year suicidal thinking (weighted OR = . 86 (. 78–....