Neuropsychiatrie : Klinik, Diagnostik, Therapie und Rehabilitation : Organ der Gesellschaft Osterreichischer Nervenarzte und Psychiater
June 30, 2026
Cielo A Estela-Fernandez, Reem Mohamed Yousif Elsheikh, Dal Bianco Beatrice et al.
Psychedelics show significant potential for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) by promoting neuroplasticity, corticolimbic function, and epigenetic changes beyond serotonergic agonism. Psilocybin-assisted therapy induces short-term symptom improvement lasting weeks to months. Ketamine, in intravenous, subcutaneous, and oral forms, produces rapid and robust reductions in depressive symptoms and relapses without impairing cognitive function. Esketamine yields early, clinically meaningful improvements in function and productivity. Ayahuasca demonstrates fast and sustained effects with higher remission rates and good safety. Despite encouraging findings, large, well-designed studies are needed before psychedelics become standard recommendations for TRD.
June 23, 2026
Carlos Minuano
Benki Piyãko, an Ashaninka leader in the Brazilian state of Acre, warns that the Amazon rainforest, which he calls one of the world's largest pharmacies, is being destroyed. This statement highlights multiple threats to the Amazon and underscores a growing debate about ayahuasca, an Indigenous psychedelic beverage considered a forest medicine.
Interações - cultura e comunidade
June 23, 2026
Leonardo Tondato Mello, Kemily Bakri Ottoni, Janaína Liz Aquino
The global expansion of ayahuasca carries both creative and destructive potential for mental health, depending on the historical and social context of Indigenous peoples' exclusion and marginalization since the colonial period. Ongoing studies of ayahuasca's therapeutic effects indicate that proper management and interdisciplinary collaboration between ancestral knowledge and Western psychology/psychiatry are essential. The article concludes that a fair and respectful exchange with Indigenous knowledge is necessary to avoid predatory appropriation.
June 21, 2026
Jonathan David, Aviva Berkovich‐ohana, Yair Dor‐ziderman et al.
preprint
Ayahuasca use among ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jews is adapted to Jewish contexts, with ceremonies modified to fit religious norms. Motivations for use are primarily therapeutic. Acute experiences include Jewish and Jewish mystical visionary content. Longer-term effects include strengthened belief, connection to Judaism, and changes in religious practice. Religious tensions arise from ayahuasca's perceived foreignness, concerns about idolatry, mixed-gender participation, and competing authority structures. Strategies to address these tensions include medicalization, making the set, setting, and experience religiously permissible ("koshering"), and framing ceremonies as liminal spaces. The findings highlight psychedelics' contextual flexibility and diffusion into understudied populations.
June 19, 2026
Jules Evans, Christian Jurlando, David Luke et al.
preprint
Belief in sorcery and supernatural harm is common among Western psychedelic users, with many reporting experiences they interpret as shamanic attack. In a survey of 895 adults involved in psychedelic culture, participants often downplayed indigenous sorcery frameworks in favor of psychological explanations, yet some left ceremonies convinced they had been harmed supernaturally. The study estimates the prevalence of such beliefs, examines how psychedelic experiences and cultural immersion shift these beliefs, and characterizes experiences interpreted as black magic. It also assesses whether fear of magical retaliation inhibits criticism of ceremonial leaders. Findings aim to inform harm reduction in ceremonial settings.
Biomedicine & pharmacotherapy = Biomedecine & pharmacotherapie
June 1, 2026
Francisco Madrid-Gambin, Pablo Mallaroni, Noemí Haro et al.
The psychedelic state induced by ayahuasca arises from coordinated, system-level interactions between peripheral metabolism and brain network dynamics, rather than isolated neurochemical events. In 20 experienced ceremonial users, the subjective dimensions of oceanic boundlessness, visionary restructuralization, and auditory alterations covaried with circulating DMT and β-carbolines, shifts in lipid, amino acid, and energy metabolism, and reconfiguration of dorsal attention and default mode network connectivity. Shared features across these experiences were most strongly linked to endocannabinoid-related N-acylethanolamines, acylglycerols, and ceramides, extending beyond canonical serotonergic models to downstream lipid-signaling and metabolic processes. The findings offer translational insight into metabolic pathways that may modulate brain function and subjective response.