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

Posted by greg_codes in Research & News - 1 points, 0 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?

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