Three-dimensional reconstructions of zebrafish swimming paths (Cachat et al. 2011) are a new technique to discover novel, meaningful behavioral patterns evoked by different experimental manipulations. Compared to traditional 2D traces, 3D swim path reconstructions enable both macro-level (general) and micro-level (specific/repeated) analyses of potentially meaningful behavioral patterns,...
Summary After a 40-year hiatus there is now a revisiting of psychedelic drug therapy throughout psychiatry, with studies examining the drugs psilocybin, ketamine, ibogaine and ayahuasca in the treatment of drug dependence. Limitations to these therapies are both clinical and legal, but the possibility of improving outcomes for patients with substance dependency imposes an obligation to research...
Food is medicine and vice versa. In Hindu and Ayurvedic medicine, and among human cultures of the Indian subcontinent in general, the perception of the food-medicine continuum is especially well established. The preparation of the exhilarating, gold-coloured Soma, Amrita or Ambrosia, the elixir and food of the 'immortals'-the Hindu pantheon-by the ancient Indo-Aryans, is described in the...
Psychoactive plants have been consumed by many cultures, cults and groups during religious rituals and ceremonies for centuries and they have been influential on the eruption of the many images, secret and religious symbols, esoteric geometrical shapes, archetypes, religious figures, philosophy of religions since the dawn of Homo sapiens. Some of the psychoactive plants used for religious...
Psychoactive plants which contain hallucinogenic molecules that induce a form of altered states of consciousness (H-ASC) have been widely used during the religious rituals of many cultures throughout the centuries, while the consumption of these plants for spiritual and religious purposes is as old as human history. Some of those cultures were shaman and pagan subcultures; African native...
This article describes the teenage vision of the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) that humanity's future would be aided by the therapeutic and spiritual potential of psychedelic substances. The article traces the trajectory of MAPS from inception in 1986 to its present, noting future goals with respect to research, outreach, and harm reduction. MAPS...
An increase in the consumption of vegetable substances with a hallucinogenic effect has been observed. Some of these substances are associated with ancestral religious ceremonies, while many of them are legal or are partially regulated. Salvia divinorum is a powerful kappa receptor agonist, with dissociative and hallucinogenic properties, which start quickly and have a short duration. Kratom...
Altered states of consciousness induced by hallucinogens (H-ASC) is still a vaguely understood phenomenon. Taken the diverse psychological effects they exert, the main mechanism of action of hallucinogens; LSD, ibogaine, THC, PCP, MDMA, methamphetamine, mescaline, psilocybin and DMT, of which psychological effects are discussed in the article, are not properly understood and explained by the...
Abstract Numerous and diverse reports indicate the efficacy of shamanic plant adjuncts (e.g., iboga, ayahuasca, psilocybin) for the care and treatment of addiction, post‐traumatic stress disorder, cancer, cluster headaches, and depression. This article reports on a first‐person healing of lifelong asthma and atopic dermatitis in the shamanic context of the contemporary P eruvian A mazon and the...
A doctor in private practice has been suspended for six months by the General Medical Council for giving the unlicensed hallucinogenic drug ibogaine to a man obsessed with internet pornography without fully explaining the drug’s risks. Peter Brackenridge, who saw private patients in London’s Harley Street, was medical director of Ibogaine Therapy UK, which advertised the treatment on a website....