Resilience and Brain Changes in Long-Term Ayahuasca Users: Insights From Psychometric and fMRI Pattern Recognition.
Journal of magnetic resonance imaging : JMRI December 1, 2025 Lucas Rego Ramos, Orlando Fernandes, Tiago Arruda Sanchez 1 citation
Long-term ayahuasca use may be associated with altered emotional brain reactivity and increased psychological resilience. In a study of 38 healthy male participants (19 long-term ayahuasca users and 19 non-user controls), users showed significantly higher resilience scores (mean = 43.89) compared to controls (mean = 39.05). A machine learning classifier distinguished users from controls with 75% accuracy, and a regression model significantly predicted individual resilience scores. These findings support neural patterns consistent with long-term adaptations from ayahuasca detectable via fMRI and machine learning.