Psychedelic Science 2013

Researchers are finding that psychedelic medicines may heal post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety and addiction, and may play an important role in spiritual practice. On April of 2013, over 70 of the world’s leading researchers from more than 12 countries presented recent findings on the benefits and risks of LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, ayahuasca, ibogaine, 2C-B, ketamine, marijuana, and more.

 

PS 2013 was an international conference hosted by the world’s leading psychedelic research institutes. It featured researchers and health professionals such as Stan Grof, Charles Grob, Dave Nichols, David Nutt, Ralph Metzner, Ann Shulgin, Gabor Mate, Dennis Mckenna, Jaques Mabit and many others.

 

Plantando Consciência was represented in the 3-day Conference by the lectures of Sidarta Ribeiro, PhD (How Similar to Dreaming is Ayahuasca Experience?) and Luis Fernando Tofoli, MD, PhD, (A Survey of Quality of Life and Antidepressant Use in Brazilian Members of the Uniao do Vegetal), by the workshop of Dartiu Xavier, PhD (Revisiting the UDV Ayahuasca in Adolescence Study: Did Methodological Bias Influence Outcomes?), and by our Executive Director, Marcelo Schenberg, who was there to interview many experts for his upcoming documentary film Medicina.

 

There were numerous opportunities to network and learn informally from one another. Conversations and lectures from a variety of disciplines and cultures fostered an atmosphere of critical thinking and respect for all ideas.

 

Check the official site for more information and videos from other lectures and workshops as well: http://www.maps.org/conference/videos/.

 

Our presentations:

How similar to dreaming is the ayahuasca experience? (english with captions)Sidarta Ribeiro, PhD

 

A Survey of Quality of Life and Antidepressant Use in Brazilian Members of the Uniao do Vegetal (english with captions)Luis Fernando Tofoli, MD, PhD

 

About our speakers:

Luis Fernando Tófoli is a Psychiatrist and a Professor at UNICAMP. He studies ayahuasca using many different approaches. In this congress he lectured about Quality of Life in the União do Vegetal (UDV) and also about the concomitant use of ayahuasca and antidepressants. He also studies other psychedelic compounds and their therapeutic and transformative potentials.

Sidarta Ribeiro holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from the Universidade de Brasília (1993), a Master’s in Biophysics from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (1994), and a PhD in Neuroscience and Animal Behavior from the Rockefeller University in New York (2000). He performed post-doctoral studies in Neurophysiology at Duke University from 2000 to 2005. Currently, he is a Full Professor of Neuroscience at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), and Director of the Brain Institute of UFRN. He has experience in the areas of neuroethology, molecular neurobiology, and multi-electrode neurophysiology, and works mainly in the following areas: sleep, dreaming and memory; immediate genes and neuronal plasticity; vocal communication in birds and primates; and symbolic understanding in non-human animals. He is greatly interested in the study of the neural bases of consciousness and its alteration. He has been involved in the public debate on the medicinal uses and the legalization of cannabis in Brazil.

Dartiu Xavier graduated in medicine and obtained his Ph.D. degree in psychiatry at the Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and his specialization in addictive behaviors at the Centre Medical Marmottan, Paris. He is a professor at the medical school of the Federal University of Sao Paulo and has been coordinating the addiction unit of the institution for the last 25 years. He has been conducting research on different themes, specifically in psychiatry and neuroscience, such as: alcohol and other drugs misuse, impulse control disorders, psychiatry comorbidity, neuropsychiatry, harm reduction, psychometrics (validation of diagnostic and screening instruments), assessment of effectiveness of therapeutic interventions, and systematic reviews and meta-analysis.

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