Light microscopical examination of plant and fungal remains in the post mortem gut may be capable of demonstrating the ingestion of unexpected natural psychotropic materials. This is demonstrated here in a case in which a 'shaman' was accused of causing the death of a young man. The deceased had participated in a ceremony which involved the drinking of ayahuasca in order to induce a...
Classical psychedelics are psychoactive substances, which, besides their psychopharmacological activity, have also been shown to exert significant modulatory effects on immune responses by altering signaling pathways involved in inflammation, cellular proliferation, and cell survival via activating NF-κB and mitogen-activated protein kinases. Recently, several neurotransmitter receptors...
Data from EEG recordings and plasma samples from volunteers who took ayahuasca in an experiment aproved and conducted at Federal University of São Paulo. Under review at PLOS ONE
While hippocampus is a brain region particularly susceptible to the effects of MDMA, the cellular and molecular changes induced by MDMA are still to be fully elucidated, being the dosage regimen, the species and the developmental stage under study great variables. This study compared the effects of one and four days of MDMA administration following a binge paradigm (3×5 mg/kg, i.p., every 2 h)...
This paper reports on a fatal overdose case involving the potent hallucinogenic drug 25C-NBOMe (2-(4-chloro-2,5-dimethoxyphenyl)-N-[(2-methoxyphenyl)methyl]ethanamine). In the present case, a young male was hospitalized after the recreational use of this potent drug. He died at the hospital at approximately 12h after ingestion, with preceding signs of serotonin toxicity. Medico-legal autopsy...
Noribogaine, a polypharmacological drug with activities at opioid receptors, ionotropic nicotinic receptors, and serotonin reuptake transporters, has been investigated for treatment of substance abuse-related disorders. Smoking cessation has major benefits for both individuals and society, therefore the aim of this study was to evaluate the potential of noribogaine for use as a treatment for...
Ecstasy use is associated with cognitive impairment, believed to result from damage to 5-HT axons. Neuroimaging techniques to investigate executive dysfunction in ecstasy users provide a more sensitive measure of cognitive impairment than behavioural indicators. The present study assessed executive access to semantic memory in ecstasy polydrug users and non-users. Twenty ecstasy polydrug users...
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) constitute a large family of receptor proteins that sense molecular signals on the exterior of a cell and activate signal transduction pathways within the cell. Modeling how an agonist activates such a receptor is fundamental for an understanding of a wide variety of physiological processes and it is of tremendous value for pharmacology and drug design....
Current pharmacotherapies for major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar depression (BDep) have a distinct lag of onset that can generate great distress and impairment in patients. Furthermore, as demonstrated by several real-world effectiveness trials, their efficacy is limited. All approved antidepressant medications for MDD primarily act through monoaminergic mechanisms, agonists or...
Objective: To report the first case of myoclonus as neurologic presentation of 5-MeO-DALT abuse Background: 5-Meo-DALT (N,N-diallyl-5-methoxytryptamine) is a relatively new hallucinogen, initially sold online in 2004. It is a psychedelic compound from the tryptamine family which affects monoamine neurotransmitters including dopamine and serotonin. It is a psychostimulant with strong visual...