Opinion – Psychedelic Turn: Brazil should create ayahuasca research program

A comprehensive scientific article on the effects of ayahuasca prompted the blog to ask the following question: why doesn’t Brazil take advantage of its pioneering spirit with this psychedelic drink to launch a national research project on its potential health benefits?

The review paper on tea, also called daime, was published in digital version in the European Neuropsychopharmacology journal, signed by five researchers from Brazil. The first author is Lucas Oliveira Maia. In the print edition of the magazine, the text will appear in January 2023.

In general terms, the article concludes that very little is known about how ayahuasca works in the human brain and organism. A systematic survey of the published literature indicates that the evidence for a therapeutic effect is stronger in the case of depression and substance abuse (chemical dependence).

There is, however, a single placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial (RCT) – the standard of excellence in biomedicine – on ayahuasca and depression. It was carried out at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) and published in 2019; three of the authors of the current review are from this group, led by Dráulio Barros de Araújo.

The clinical trial included only 29 patients with treatment-resistant depression (30% of patients who do not improve with available antidepressants). He showed improvement of symptoms on the first day, sustained for a week.

It is one of the most cited works in national psychedelic science, which placed Brazil in third place for high-impact articles in the area, after the USA and the UK. The highlight results from a long tradition of studies with psychoactive drugs, starting with cannabis at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp) and ayahuasca at USP in Ribeirão Preto.

Long before that, still in the 1950s/60s, even LSD was researched at the USP Psychiatry Institute in the capital. In Canada and the USA, promising results have been obtained with lysergic acid in the treatment of alcoholism. Prohibition in the 1970s, however, aborted this line of inquiry here and around the world.

The subject of study returned to the fore with force from the turn of the 21st century, in what has been called the psychedelic renaissance. Hundreds of clinical trials are underway around the world; billions of dollars are invested in new companies in the area; US cities and states decriminalize possession and use of mind-altering substances, such as psilocybin from so-called “magic” mushrooms.

Brazil has a critical scientific mass and accumulated experience in the area thanks to ayahuasca. Because it has legalized religious use, barriers to tea research are lower than elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands of people drink the drink fortnightly in Santo Daime and União do Vegetal (UDV) rituals.

Several studies compiled in European Neuropsychopharmacology make use of this population and scientific collection, such as surveys showing a lower prevalence of alcohol abuse in those religions. UFRN maintains an extensive project to study DMT (dimethyltryptamine, one of the compounds in ayahuasca) with animal models and humans.

It would make perfect sense to start from this base to build a research program coordinating several institutions to elucidate the mysteries that still surround the brew. Studies indicate that daime seems to promote the formation of new brain connections (neuroplasticity), a mechanism that seems to be behind the therapeutic effect in mental disorders, but how it is not known.

Another important field to explore is adverse effects, such as the induction of psychotic breaks. These are rare events, and what is described in the literature suggests that they were people with a personal or family history of disorders, or who were using other drugs at the same time.

Even causing vomiting and diarrhea in some individuals, ayahuasca is generally considered safe from a physiological point of view. It is not known to develop dependence. But it would be essential to carry out studies with more participants, to better understand if there are not more susceptible people in the population, perhaps due to the influence of genetic factors.

A broad ayahuasca research program should also include the human sciences. The drink came to us through dozens of indigenous peoples in the Amazon, inside and outside Brazil, and biomedical science owes them a debt that needs to be addressed, to which anthropologists, jurists, sociologists and even philosophers can contribute.

More than that, customs and techniques of ceremonial use of ayahuasca can be guides to establish application protocols, in case the tea or its components come to know generalized therapeutic use. It is one thing to ingest the substance in a hospital or laboratory environment, inhospitable to emotionally and spiritually profound, if not difficult, experiences, which can contribute to making them more threatening than they appear in ritual contexts.

With the federal government extinct in less than two months, such an ambitious and daring research program would be unthinkable. With the new administration taking office in January, someone should take the initiative to propose something like a Pronaya or Prodaime – after all, there are four years of damage to Brazilians’ mental and physical health to overcome.

—-

To learn more about the history and new developments of science in this area, including in Brazil, look for my book “Psiconautas – Travels with Brazilian Psychedelic Science”.

Be sure to also see the reports from the series “A Resurreição da Jurema”:

https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ilustrissima/2022/07/reporter-conta-experiencia-de-inalar-dmt-psicodelico-em-teste-contra-depressao.shtml

https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ilustrissima/2022/07/da-caatinga-ao-laboratorio-cientistas-investigam-efeito-antidepressivo-de-psicodelico.shtml

https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ilustrissima/2022/07/cultos-com-alucinogeno-da-jurema-florescem-no-nordeste.shtml

It is worth remembering that psychedelics are still experimental therapies and certainly do not constitute a panacea for all mental disorders, nor should they be self-medicated. Talk to your therapist or doctor before venturing into the area.