Uso da ayahuasca para tratamento da depressão: uma revisão de literatura

Abstract

Depression is a clinical condition prevalent in the world population, being a disabling disease manifesting in the patient a picture of sadness, taking away the desire to develop activities that were previously pleasurable. Treatment alternatives need to be researched and developed, as many patients do not respond to conventional treatments or experience adverse effects, also interfering with therapeutic success. Ayahuasca is an indigenous drink from the Amazon region and seems to have antidepressant properties, due to the alkaloids present such as dimethyltryptamine (DMT), harmine and harmaline. This work was prepared from research on the PubMed platform. Keywords were used: Ayahuasca, ayahuasca actions, adverse effects of ayahuasca use, ayahuasca in depression. This search was carried out between the months of April and October of the year 2022. In total, 57 articles were searched for this work, of these only 10 articles were chosen for their demonstration in the study. All were developed with humans aged over 18 years with varying numbers of patients, the methodologies of the included studies were randomized with placebo, open-label, pilot and meta-analysis studies. It was observed that the use of ayahuasca in all studies had beneficial properties for the improvement of depression, and may in the future be an alternative for the treatment of depression