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Substâncias Psicoactivas; Tipos de substâncias; Medicamentos; Tipos de consumos; Influência do consumo de substâncias psicoactivas no local de trabalho; Disposições Legais; Medidas de cessação de consumos; N/A

The interest in psychedelic substances as potential treatments for psychiatric disorders is increasing. The β-carboline harmine, an Ayahuasca component, presents hallucinogenic and antidepressant effects. Although Ayuahuasca-and consequently harmine-is usually consumed in rituals, the role of social contexts in the behavioral effects of harmine has not been investigated yet. In this sense, affective states may modulate cohabitants' behavior, including learning/memory. This work investigates the effects of harmine on the learning/memory performance of rats evaluated on the contextual and tone fear conditioning (CFC and TFC) and on the plus-maze discriminative avoidance (PMDAT) tasks. The possible influence of a harmine-treated cohabitant was assessed by evaluating rats housed in homogeneous cages-where all the animals were acutely administered with the same treatment (vehicle, 5, 10, or 15 mg/kg harmine), and in heterogeneous cages-where each animal received a different drug treatment. The main results are: (a) harmine impaired CFC (10 mg/kg) and PMDAT discrimination (all doses); and (b) harmine caused a memory deficit in CFC, TFC, and PMDAT of untreated rats kept in heterogeneous cages. Our results show that harmine induces a memory deficit in tasks with emotional contexts. Further, the cohabitation with animals treated with this drug also seems to impair memory performance of untreated animals. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Introduction Ayahuasca is a beverage composed by a mixture of herbs which contain the compound N,N-dimethyltriptamine (DMT) and the β-carbolines. Although its use is legalized in Brazil only for religious and spiritual ceremonies, there is a growing black market specialized in the distribution of these compounds in form of herbal material through internet and mail. The purpose of this work was the development of an ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for the determination of ayahuasca alkaloids and its application in seized ayahuasca products. Methods An aliquot of seized products was weighted and diluted with methanol. An aliquot of this solution was added with internal standard (DMT-d6), followed by injection in the analytical system. Results The limit of quantitation was 10 ng/mL for DMT and 25 ng/mL for harmine, harmaline and tetrahydroharmine. The concentration ranges used were 10–100 ng/mL for DMT, harmine and harmaline and all analytes presented a coefficient of determination (r2) ≥ 0,99. Analysis of four seized samples presented concentrations of DMT ranging between 31.5 and 46.5 mg/g. Presence of β-carbolines was not detected in the products. The variability of DMT concentrations can be correlated with the potential intoxications described in the literature. Conclusion This work successfully established a determination method for ayahuasca alkaloids in herbal material. In addition, the workflow proved to be simple, rapid and useful to estimate the concentration of psychoactive compounds in seized materials, leading to further investigation of ayahuasca ritualistic or recreational exposure.

Background Rates of psychiatric conditions common to end-stage cancer patients (delirium, depression, anxiety disorders) remain unchanged. However, patient numbers have increased as the population has aged; indeed, cancer is a chief cause of mortality and morbidity in older populations. Effectiveness of psychiatric interventions and research to evaluate, inform, and improve interventions is critical to these patients’ care. This article’s intent is to report results from a recent review study on the effectiveness of interventions for psychiatric conditions common to end-stage cancer patients; the review study assessed the state of research regarding treatment effectiveness. Unlike previous review studies, this one included non-traditional/alternative therapies and spirituality interventions that have undergone scientific inquiry. Methods A five-phase systematic strategy and a theoretic grounded iterative methodology were used to identify studies for inclusion and to craft an integrated, synthesized, comprehensive, and reasonably current end-product. Results Psychiatric medication therapies undoubtedly are the most powerful treatments. Among them, the most effective (i.e., “best practices benchmarks”) are: (1) for delirium, typical antipsychotics—though there is no difference between typical vs. atypical and other antipsychotics, except for different side-effect profiles, (2) for depression, if patient life expectancy is ≥4–6 weeks, then a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), and if

Ayahuasca is a beverage with psychoactive properties used in religious and ceremonial rituals by some religious groups. The main active components of ayahuasca are dimethyltryptamine and the harmala alkaloids with β-carboline structure acting as monoamine oxidase A inhibitors. This combination produces a pronounced activation of serotonergic pathways and presents potential interaction with other psychotropics. The objective of this study was to investigate the possible interactions between ayahuasca and agents employed in general anesthesia. The pharmacological interactions between ayahuasca and morphine or propofol were evaluated in mice using doses of 12, 120 and 1200 mg/kg (0.1 to 10 times the average dose consumed by humans in religious rituals). Ayahuasca alone showed an antinociceptive effect in the writhing and formalin tests, and intensified the analgesic effect of morphine in the hot plate test. Concerning the pharmacological interactions between ayahuasca and propofol, the results were opposite; ayahuasca intensified the depressant effect of propofol in the rotarod test, but decreased the sleeping time induced by propofol. These set of results showed the occurrence of some interactions between ayahuasca and the drugs morphine and propofol, possibly by both pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics mechanisms.