Ayahuasca as a Candidate Therapy for PTSD
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a syndrome that affects a substantial portion of both the civilian and military populations, and is often underdiagnosed due to complications with delayed onset and co-occurring psychiatric disorders. The prevalence
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Ayahuasca as a Candidate Therapy for PTSD Jessica L. Nielson and Julie D. Megler
Abstract Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a syndrome that affects a substantial portion of both the civilian and military populations, and is often underdiagnosed due to complications with delayed onset and co-occurring psychiatric disorders. The prevalence of this devastating disorder is growing as more people come forward with traumatic events in their past. It is crucial that we develop a more comprehensive diagnostic and therapeutic framework for PTSD in order to reduce harm and aid in long-term functional recovery. Currently accepted therapeutic options for PTSD are proving to be insufficient as increasing numbers of people present with treatment-resistant PTSD, and alternative avenues for diagnosis and treatment are currently being investigated to improve standards of patient care. This chapter focuses on the rationale for why ayahuasca may be successful in treating certain kinds of PTSD, and reviews the previously reported pathophysiology of PTSD and its current treatments, and the new, experimental therapies being explored. This chapter also proposes a novel method known as ‘‘syndromics,’’ which aims to characterize the full syndrome of PTSD using bioinformatics and multivariate pattern detection, in the hopes that by understanding the full complexity of this syndrome, we will be able to identify more efficient therapeutic targets, such as ayahuasca, to cure it.
J. L. Nielson (&) Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, 1001 Potrero Avenue, Building 1, Room 101, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA e-mail: [email protected] URL: http://www.brainandspinalinjury.org/member.php?id=148 J. D. Megler The Well Clinic, San Francisco, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] URL: http://www.wellsanfrancisco.com/staff/julie-megler
B. C. Labate and C. Cavnar (eds.), The Therapeutic Use of Ayahuasca, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-40426-9_3, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014
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J. L. Nielson and J. D. Megler
Relevance It is to our detriment that we live in a culture that does not honor the internal world. In many cultures, the internal world of dreams, feelings, images, and sensations is sacred. Yet, most of us are only peripherally aware of its existence. We have little or no experience of finding our way around in this internal landscape. Consequently, when our experience demands it, we are unprepared (Levine and Frederick 1997).
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating syndrome that causes extreme states of fear as the result of a deeply distressing experience (American Psychological Association 1994; Yehuda 2002). It is estimated that approximately 40-60 % of adults have been exposed to a traumatic experience, and approximately 7-12 % of them will develop PTSD (Stein et al. 2000). However, among combat veterans, this statistic increases to 22-31 % (Prigerson et al. 2002), and may be an under-representation of the actual prevalence of PTSD, as symptoms often go unrecog
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