Speaker Bio
Draulio Araujo Dráulio Barros de Araújo received his bachelor's degree in physics (1995), master’s in applied physics (1997), Ph.D. in physics applied to medicine and biology (2002), and pos-doctorate in radiology (2002), when he joined the department of physics (USP) as an assistant professor, where he became an associate professor (2008). Since 2009, he is a full professor at the Brain Institute at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Brazil. He was a Fulbright scholar at the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences (2017-19), University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. He has been studying psychedelics since 2006 when his group used functional neuroimaging to assess the neural basis of the ayahuasca effects. He’s also leading clinical trials to test safety, tolerability, and the effects of ayahuasca and isolated N,N-DMT in healthy and clinical populations. He is also collaborating on research projects with LSD and ketamine.
ICPR 2024 Abstract
DMT Science in Brazil: Past, Present, Future
This symposium will present our journey through N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) research, which started over two decades ago. First, Fernanda Palhano-Fontes is going to present our pioneering clinical study on the antidepressant effects of ayahuasca. To simplify and optimize possible clinical applications in health systems, our team continued to explore the practicability of inhaled DMT. Here, Marcelo Falchi will present our investigations on the safety and tolerability of vaporized DMT in healthy humans. This presentation will be followed by presenting the basic science of DMT, conducting a study on its effects on suggestibility, a capacity of crucial importance in therapeutic contexts, and related brain mechanisms, which Isabel Wießner will present. Following the path of investigating DMT’s antidepressant properties, Draulio Araujo will show the results of our recent phase IIa clinical trial on DMT in patients with depression. Lastly, Nicole Galvão-Coelho will close the symposium by detailing our findings on the impact of DMT on different biomarkers of major depression, as examined in all our studies.