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Ayahuasca enhances the formation of hippocampal-dependent episodic memory without impacting false memory susceptibility in experienced ayahuasca users: An observational study

Summary

Researchers studied how ayahuasca affects memory in experienced Santo Daime church members who use it regularly. Surprisingly, instead of impairing memory like other psychedelics typically do, ayahuasca enhanced people’s ability to remember details of events they witnessed. Importantly, the drug did not make people more susceptible to false memories or memory distortions, even though the entire study occurred while participants were under its acute effects.

Background

Ayahuasca is an Amazonian brew containing DMT and β-carbolines with 5-HT2A-dependent psychedelic effects. While psychedelics typically impair hippocampal-dependent episodic memory formation, their effects on memory in frequent users remain unclear. Understanding ayahuasca’s impact on recollection, familiarity, and false memory is important given its therapeutic potential and use by religious groups.

Objective

This study investigated the acute impact of ayahuasca on recollection, familiarity, and false memory susceptibility in experienced Santo Daime members with over 500 lifetime ayahuasca uses on average. The researchers examined whether pre-encoding ayahuasca administration would impair true memory and increase susceptibility to false memory.

Results

Pre-encoding ayahuasca surprisingly enhanced hit rates, memory accuracy, and recollection estimates, with particularly large effects on high-confidence responses. Ayahuasca had no impact on familiarity estimates or false memory susceptibility across any lure types. Metamemory was not affected by ayahuasca administration in any of the tested configurations.

Conclusion

Contrary to expectations from psychedelic research, ayahuasca enhanced episodic memory formation in experienced users without increasing susceptibility to memory distortions. The enhancement was selective for recollection-based memory and likely driven by β-carboline activity. Controlled trials are needed to validate these findings and determine if effects generalize to inexperienced users.
  • Published in:Journal of Psychopharmacology,
  • Study Type:Observational Study,
  • Source: PMID: 39614620, DOI: 10.1177/02698811241301216
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