Translated from our German original by AI. The German text was researched, written, and edited by the Psychedelia Foundation team and remains the authoritative version.
Since 2021, scientists at the Brain Institute of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil have been studying the use of inhaled N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) for the treatment of treatment-resistant depression. The results and the scientific background of this refinement of psychedelic treatment approaches are set out in detail in the book chapter “The Goddess Jurema and the Devil of Science Against the Dragon of Anxiety” from the volume The Psychedelic Science of the Jurema Tree.
The DMT used is extracted directly from the bark of the black jurema (Mimosa tenuiflora, in Portuguese jurema-preta). The plant material comes from a farm owned by the father of Dr. Dráulio de Araújo. De Araújo, a physicist and neuroscientist who leads the trials, already has extensive research experience with DMT-containing ayahuasca in the treatment of depression and is now continuing this scientific work with pure, inhaled DMT.
One particular focus of the chapter is the phenomenological level of the treatment: the author, Marcelo Leite, reports on his own experiences as a participant in the pilot phase of this clinical study. He describes the subjective effects during the roughly ten-minute altered state of consciousness and sets out why this comparatively short but intense psychedelic experience holds considerable potential as a novel antidepressant.
The account is rounded out by concise short profiles of the scientists involved in the project and by an overview of their research findings already published in peer-reviewed journals.
