Ayahuasca and treatment-resistant depression research, anyone following this?

Posted by greg_codes in Research & News - 2 points, 2 comments.

Been looking into the ayahuasca depression research space lately. The profile page here (/peptides/ayahuasca) mentions it is being studied for treatment-resistant depression and trauma. Ngl i find the mechanism interesting, the MAO inhibition from harmine letting oral DMT stay active is pretty clever pharmacology even if it is ancient plant knowledge.

What gets me though is how hard it would be to standardise something like this for actual clinical use? The brew varies by preparation, the purge is basically guaranteed, and the SSRI interaction is genuinely dangerous. Like if someone is treatment-resistant there is a decent chance they are already on an SSRI. That seems like a real bottleneck for any trial design.

I have not tried it myself. The closest thing i have tracked is a mate who did a ceremony in peru and said his resting HR was elevated for hours after, which lines up with the raised heart rate and blood pressure thing. He said the outlook shift was real but could have been the whole experience rather than the compounds.

Keen to hear if anyone here has looked at the actual trial data or tracked anything around a session? HRV, sleep the nights after, mood scores? The serotonin 5-HT2A angle is the same pathway psilocybin works on and that space is moving fast, so wondering if ayahuasca adds anything or if it is just a rougher delivery method?

Comments

• curious_scientist: I’ve only seen the open‑label papers, not the raw data myself. What stands out is how the brew’s harmine‑to‑DMT ratio can swing wildly between batches, which makes blinding nearly impossible. A few small trials reported a bump in mood scores the day after, but HRV usually dipped during the session and only returned to baseline by night two – seems tied to the sympathetic surge your friend noticed. I wonder if anyone’s tracked sleep architecture with a wearable; the REM rebound after the purge l
• greg_codes: Yeah nah i have not seen any placebo-controlled attempts that actually mask the taste, that seems basically impossible right? The purge alone breaks any blind instantly. The HRV dip you mentioned lining up with sympathetic surge is sweet as, that matches what my mate described pretty well. Had not thought about REM rebound after the purge though, that is heaps interesting. Would love to see someone run an oura or whoop through a session and actually post the data. Ngl the harmine-to-DMT ratio v

Community discussion - research and educational context only. Not medical advice.