Aya Healing
Retreats

Clinical Applications
of Ayahuasca

Clinical applications of ayahuasca are applications of ayahusaca in which the plant medicine is used in a clinical environment for the treatment of various conditions, including drug addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. The study of ayahuasca for clinical applications is relatively new in the history of Western medicine given that ayahuasca’s main constituent compounds are for the most part heavily regulated by Western governments, making earnest scientific research difficult or impossible. The first published research studies of ayahuasca’s active alkaloid components date back to the 1950s¹ when, along with early interest in other psychedelic compounds such as psilocybin and lysergic acid, researchers began paying attention to dimethyltriptamine. This interest continued, though not in earnest, through the 1960s and 1970s, but the research was focused more on DMT’s chemical mechanisms and ayahusaca’s sociological role in indigenous Amazonian cultures.

Early clinical research of ayahuasca began with a few initial studies in the 1990s, primarily pioneered by the work of Dr. Dennis McKenna² and his colleagues, who conducted extensive field research in the Amazon jungle studying native use of ayahusaca. Dr. McKenna’s work gave scientific credence to the possibility of entheogens in general, and ayahuasca in particular, being used for therapeutic purposes.

McKenna’s research was steadily built upon in the following years, with early interest being given to ayahusaca’s effects on tremors³, Parkinson’s⁴, and neurodegenerative disorders⁵.

In more recent years, researchers have managed to conduct more and more clinical trials, gather results, and publish more extensively on the topic, which has succeeded in pushing research forward and opening new windows of possibility for the future use of ayahuasca in clinical protocols for certain conditions. In addition to drug addiction treatment, nervous system diseases and depression, recent research has explored ayahusaca’s effects on an ever-broadening range of potential clinical applications, including its effect on human emotion6, stress and trauma7, social behavior8, and even eating disorders9.

 
References

1 ARNOLD OH, HOFMANN G. Zur Psychopathologie des Dimethyl-tryptamin; ein weiterer Beitrag zur Pharmakopsychiatrie; vorläufige Mitteilung [Psychopathological effects of dimethyltryptamine; a further contribution on pharmacopsychiatry; preliminary report]. Wien Z Nervenheilkd Grenzgeb. 1957;13(4):438-45. German. PMID: 13456569.

2 Callaway JC, Airaksinen MM, McKenna DJ, Brito GS, Grob CS. Platelet serotonin uptake sites increased in drinkers of ayahuasca. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 1994 Nov;116(3):385-7. doi: 10.1007/BF02245347. PMID: 7892432.

3Kawanishi K, Eguchi N, Hayashi T, Hashimoto Y. Relationship between occurrence of tremor/convulsion and level of beta-carbolines in the brain after administration of beta-carbolines into mice. Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 1994 Mar;47(3):689-99. doi: 10.1016/0091-3057(94)90175-9. PMID: 8208790.

4Schwarz MJ, Houghton PJ, Rose S, Jenner P, Lees AD. Activities of extract and constituents of Banisteriopsis caapi relevant to parkinsonism. Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 2003 Jun;75(3):627-33. doi: 10.1016/s0091-3057(03)00129-1. PMID: 12895680.

5Samoylenko V, Rahman MM, Tekwani BL, Tripathi LM, Wang YH, Khan SI, Khan IA, Miller LS, Joshi VC, Muhammad I. Banisteriopsis caapi, a unique combination of MAO inhibitory and antioxidative constituents for the activities relevant to neurodegenerative disorders and Parkinson’s disease. J Ethnopharmacol. 2010 Feb 3;127(2):357-67. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2009.10.030. Epub 2009 Oct 30. PMID: 19879939; PMCID: PMC2828149.

6Arruda Sanchez T, Ramos LR, Araujo F, Schenberg EE, Yonamine M, Lobo I, de Araujo DB, Luna LE. Emotion regulation effects of Ayahuasca in experienced subjects during implicit aversive stimulation: An fMRI study. J Ethnopharmacol. 2024 Feb 10;320:117430. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2023.117430. Epub 2023 Nov 17. PMID: 37979818.

7Werle I, Nascimento LMM, Dos Santos ALA, Soares LA, Dos Santos RG, Hallak JEC, Bertoglio LJ. Ayahuasca-enhanced extinction of fear behaviour: Role of infralimbic cortex 5-HT2A and 5-HT1A receptors. Br J Pharmacol. 2024 Jun;181(11):1671-1689. doi: 10.1111/bph.16315. Epub 2024 Feb 6. PMID: 38320596.

8Aday JS, Bloesch EK, Davis AK, Domoff SE, Scherr K, Woolley JD, Davoli CC. Effects of Ayahuasca on Gratitude and Relationships with Nature: A Prospective, Naturalistic Study. J Psychoactive Drugs. 2024 Feb 4:1-10. doi: 10.1080/02791072.2024.2312980. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38310541.

9Calder A, Mock S, Friedli N, Pasi P, Hasler G. Psychedelics in the treatment of eating disorders: Rationale and potential mechanisms. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. 2023 Oct;75:1-14. doi: 10.1016/j.euroneuro.2023.05.008. Epub 2023 Jun 21. PMID: 37352816.

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