In the last decade, the interest and use of ayahuasca has expanded exponentially. This phenomenon has both activated the advancement of scientific research into its effects, risks and therapeutic potential, as well as serious legal, ethical and sustainability challenges.

The World Ayahuasca Conference 2014, organized by the ICEERS Foundation, aims to be a multidisciplinary event that brings together leading scientists, legal experts, practitioners, environmentalists and other experts involved in the ayahuasca field, facilitating the interchange of experience and knowledge, and the birth of new synergies and collaborations through the formal presentations and round tables, workshops and debates, as well as the informal events of the conference.

Also I was thinking if maybe we can present something there, like about new research on ayahuasca analogues or something similar.. What do you guys/gals think? Maybe we can collectively work on a presentation idea here.

Despite numerous published scientific papers and anecdotal reports indicating the presence of DMT in a wide variety of plants, there is much ambiguity, contradiction, and speculation regarding the actual chemical composition of many of these plants. Discussions of indigenous preparations, which include DMT-containing plants, often treat the phytochemistry of the β-carboline-containing plants as fairly uniform. However, new examinations of these plants, utilizing modern analytical techniques, have shown them to contain a variety of compounds in differing ratios.

The DMT-Nexus has carried out unique chromatography and mass spectrometry analyses of specimens reported to contain DMT and β-carbolines, from both novel and previously examined species complexes. Thus far, we have tested species within the Acacia, Phalaris, Psychotria, Banisteriopsis and related genera, as well as Mimosa tenuiflora and Diplopterys cabrerana. This research has elucidated questions and hypotheses regarding: indigenous botanical preparations; identities of plants found in the global market of entheogenic vendors; and the phytochemistry of plants that ethnobotanical researchers encounter in their own geographic regions.

Key results from our ongoing inquiries show that neither Tetrapterys methystica nor Alicia anisopetala contain harmala alkaloids, despite being used in similar manners to Banisteriopsis caapi. Additionally, our analyses of Diplopterys cabrerana have not demonstrated the presence of 5-MeO-DMT, despite numerous anecdotal claims that this plant induces subjectively similar effects to 5-MeO-DMT. Similarly, our analyses of Banisteriopsis muricata leaves have not detected the presence DMT, despite hypotheses by notable ethnobotanists to the contrary.

The significance of this research is that it presents the merging of traditional ethnobotanical knowledge into contemporary scientific contexts, while expanding our phytochemical knowledgebase. Through botanical and chemical analyses, we are beginning to correlate plants identified in formal botanical contexts and their chemical constituents with their indigenous classifications and uses. We are also working towards identifying plants with alkaloid profiles analogous to traditional entheogens.