New World Tryptamine Hallucinogens and the Neuroscience of Ayahuasca
Current topics in behavioral neurosciences January 1, 2015 Dennis McKenna, Jordi Riba 31 citations
Indigenous peoples of the New World have a long history of using psychedelic plants in shamanic and ethnomedical practices, and such use is much more common there than in the Old World. Although the plants used are botanically diverse, their active compounds are chemically similar, almost all being tryptamine derivatives such as DMT or related substances. Part 1 of this paper gives an ethnopharmacological overview of the major tryptamine-containing hallucinogens found in the New World.