ICPR 2012: Matthew Johnson – A Systematic Research Program Examining Psilocybin, Mystical Experience, Personality Change, Adverse Effects and Therapeutic Applications
This talk will describe several lines of research with psilocybin conducted by our laboratory at Johns Hopkins (Baltimore, USA). Completed study results to be presented include: the effects of different psilocybin doses on mystical experience and challenging effects (“bad trips”); the effects of psilocybin in altering personality (increased [...]
ICPR 2012: Robin Carhart-Harris – Neuroimaging Studies with Psilocybin and MDMA
This talk will describe recently completed fMRI and MEG research with psilocybin and MDMA. I will describe the methods and main results of these studies and discuss their potential implications, both for understanding how the drugs work in the brain and how their effects may be relevant to [...]
EARS: Brian Anderson – Ayahuasca in psychiatry: From psiquiatría folklórica to neuroimaging
This presentation analyzes from an anthropological perspective some of the ways that ayahuasca’s curative potentials have been portrayed in conventional psychiatry from the 1950s until today. Through considering seldom-cited and difficult-to-access publications and other forms of academic psychiatric productions, it is shown how different cultures within psychiatry have [...]
EARS: Rama Leclerc – The bridge of knowledge: Special links between Shipibo curanderismo and Westerner practices with ayahuasca
The Shipibo-Konibo people from the Peruvian Amazon are part of the Pano ethnolinguistic family. Distributed within more than one hundred villages, the inhabitants live along the Ucayali River and its tributaries, on both sides of Pucallpa city. The Shipibo women are recognized for their handicrafts (especially pottery and [...]
EARS: Petra Bokor – Integration process and possible therapeutic effects of ayahuasca in non-therapeutic setting
The presentation starts with an overview of the research on the psychotherapeutic effects of ayahuasca and presents in details an investigation into the integration process of ayahuasca experiences. Eleven individuals participating in a series of ayahuasca rituals were followed for the period of one year in a study [...]
EARS: Janine Schmid – Self-therapy with ayahuasca
The often used term ‘healing ritual’ for nearly all kinds of ayahuasca rituals (Santo Daime rituals, neo-shamanistic rituals and even do-it-yourself-rituals) attracts people searching for an alternative method for treatment. In this study, fifteen people with first-hand experience with ayahuasca 'therapy' for a special disease (like chronic pain, [...]
EARS: Jörg Daumann – Pharmacological modulation of attentional processes in the DMT and ketamine model of psychosis
Deficits in attentional functions are counted among the core cognitive symptoms in schizophrenic patients. Pharmacologic challenges with hallucinogens have been used as models for psychosis. In this talk I give an overview of our studies on the pharmacological modulation of DMT and ketamine on different aspects of attentional [...]
Mind Altering Science: Konstantin Kuteykin-Teplyakov – Molecules of Mysticism: Pharmacology Meets Anthropology
"Molecules of mysticism” are chemical substances that are able to induce mystical experience, increasing the feeling of closeness to the god (entheogens) or to other people (empathogens). It is quite likely, that every mystical experience is mediated chemically, either by some substances of external origin, or by endogenous [...]
Mind Altering Science: Torsten Passie – Astonishing Similarities of Physiological and Psychoactive Drug Induced States
Dr. Passie completed his training as a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy as well as his academic work at the Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich, in practice by Prof. Hans Carl Leuner in Göttingen and Hannover Medical School. He wrote his doctorate on existential aspects of psychiatric disorders and [...]
Mind Altering Science: Joe Bicknell – Cognitive Phenomenology of the Psychedelic Experience
Psychedelic phenomenology deals with the phenomenal content of psychedelic tripping, thus phenomenology approaches psychedelics from the reverse direction of the scientific approach, because instead of looking at the structures of physical brain chemistry and drug chemistry as scientists do, phenomenologists instead examine the structures of consciousness itself. The [...]