Doctor on a Trip

After many years of research in European laboratories, an international team led by MuDr. Tomáš Páleníček sets off for the Amazon rainforest to compare different aspects of the influence of psychedelics on brain function with the centuries-long experience of Indian shamans living in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. The researchers’ goal is to find alternatives to overused and ineffective antidepressants.

The experiment involves a group of twenty volunteers, who will be using Ayahuasca and monitored under laboratory conditions as well as in the rainforest, led by an experienced shaman. The effects of Ayahuasca on the volunteers will then be measured in both environments, and the two results compared.

The experiment offers the exclusive opportunity to visit and work with the leaders of the Huni kui tribe, who live in the middle of the rainforest and have minimal contact with modern civilization, which nobody has achieved before for research purposes. Under the rule of president Bolsonaro, indigenous people welcome every opportunity to help shed light on and protect their way of life, which is going extinct.