Abstract
Ayahuasca is an Amazonian psychoactive plant beverage containing the serotonergic 5-HT2A agonist N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and monoamine oxidase-inhibiting alkaloids (harmine, harmaline and tetrahydroharmine) that render it orally active. Ayahuasca ingestion is a central feature in several Brazilian syncretic churches that have expanded their activities to urban Brazil, Europe and North America. Members of these groups typically ingest ayahuasca at least twice per month. Prior research has shown that acute ayahuasca increases blood flow in prefrontal and temporal brain regions and that it elicits intense modifications in thought processes, perception and emotion. However, regular ayahuasca use does not seem to induce the pattern of addiction-related problems that characterize drugs of abuse. To study the impact of repeated ayahuasca use on general psychological well-being, mental health and cognition, here we assessed personality, psychopathology, life attitudes and neuropsychological performance in regular ayahuasca users (n = 127) and controls (n = 115) at baseline and 1 year later. Controls were actively participating in non-ayahuasca religions. Users showed higher Reward Dependence and Self-Transcendence and lower Harm Avoidance and Self-Directedness. They scored significantly lower on all psychopathology measures, showed better performance on the Stroop test, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and the Letter-Number Sequencing task from the WAIS-III, and better scores on the Frontal Systems Behavior Scale. Analysis of life attitudes showed higher scores on the Spiritual Orientation Inventory, the Purpose in Life Test and the Psychosocial Well-Being test. Despite the lower number of participants available at follow-up, overall differences with controls were maintained one year later. In conclusion, we found no evidence of psychological maladjustment, mental health deterioration or cognitive impairment in the ayahuasca-using group.
Highlights
Ayahuasca is a psychotropic tea obtained from Banisteripsis caapi and Psychotria viridis, two plant species native to the Amazon Basin [1]
In this paper we report the results of a study designed to evaluate personality, life attitudes, mental health and neuropsychological performance in a relatively large number of ritual ayahuasca users and their matched controls
The Jungle sample consisted in the first assessment of 56 regular ayahuasca users and 56 controls
Summary
Ayahuasca is a psychotropic tea obtained from Banisteripsis caapi and Psychotria viridis, two plant species native to the Amazon Basin [1]. Ayahuasca has traditionally played a central role in Amazonian shamanism and in more recent times it has become the sacrament of various syncretic religious groups that have exported its use and increased its popularity worldwide [2]. Attesting this expansion, the anthropological and ethnographical bibliography on its modern religious use includes more than 400 scientific papers, book chapters, PhD theses and articles in popular magazines written in ten different languages. P. viridis contains the hallucinogen N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT; [5]), a compound listed in the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances. B. caapi contains harmala alkaloids that reversibly block the metabolic breakdown of DMT, leading to psychoactivity [10,11]
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