This is what your brain looks like on DMT – the powerful chemical in ayahuasca loved by Prince Harry

New images taken by scientists have revealed what the brain looked like as it stumbled across the psychoactive chemical DMT, which Prince Harry says helped him heal from the trauma he felt after his mother’s death.

N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, is the strongest psychedelic known to man and a key ingredient in the potent ayahuasca brew, used widely by tribal societies in the Amazon basin, where it is considered a “wisdom” plant that allows entry into the spiritual world.

It has permeated the mainstream in recent years with famous figures like Joe Rogan, Mike Tyson and Lindsay Lohan claiming that it changed their outlook on life and freed them from past traumas. More recently, Jake Paul claimed that he took ayahuasca with NFL star Aaron Rodgers.

It is being explored as a therapy for depression and PTSD by research teams in the US and around the world.

Fascinating MRI and EEG brain scans show that it lights up brain regions responsible for memory and imagination while shutting down major brain rhythms that inhibit and restrict brain function.

Prince Harry has admitted to using psychedelics (magic mushrooms, psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) and ayahuasca, a plant-based psychedelic extracted from the leaves of a bush) in an attempt to help him heal from “pain “.

Scientists investigating DMT said the brain imaging helped them understand that the drug makes brain activity more chaotic, or information-rich.

Researchers at Imperial College London injected 20 healthy volunteers, average age 33, with a high dose of 20mg of the drug.

They also took detailed brain images with two types of scans: functional magnetic resonance imaging (f-MRI), which measures small changes in blood flow that occur with brain activity, and electroencephalogram (EEG), which measures electrical activity in the brain. .

Professor Robin Carhart-Harris, founder of the Center for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London and lead author of the paper, said: “FMRI allowed us to see the entire brain, including its deeper structures, and EEG helped us to see the brain.” fine-grained rhythmic activity.’

Brain images were taken from eight minutes before the DMT trip to 20 minutes after.

The images reveal a significant impact on the brain, especially in the regions necessary for planning, language, memory, complex decision-making, and imagination.

The areas of the brain from which we produce our reality become superconnected and communication becomes more random and fluid.

The scientists discovered that the normal organization of the brain breaks down and electrical activity becomes chaotic, particularly in the areas in charge of the imagination.

Professor Carhart-Harris said The Guardian: ‘The stronger the intensity of the experience, the more hyperconnected those brain areas were.’

He said: ‘People (in DMT) describe leaving this world and making their way into another that is incredibly immersive and richly complex, sometimes populated by other beings who feel they might have special power over them, like gods.

He added: ‘What we’ve seen is that DMT breaks down the basic networks of the brain, causing them to become less distinct from one another. We also see the major rhythms in the brain, which serve a largely inhibitory and restrictive function, break down and, on the whole, brain activity becomes more entropic or information-rich.

The study, the first to track brain activity before, during and after DMT in such detail, was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

DMT and ayahuasca are part of a wave of psychedelics, along with psilocybin mushrooms and ketamine, that were dismissed as hippie drugs but are now being explored by scientists as powerful therapies.

Previous scientific details about what exactly ayahuasca does in the brain are scant, but the research suggested that there was an increase in the “utilization rates” of monoamines within the amygdala, which increases the intensity of memories.

There is also increased blood flow to the insula, which could be responsible for increased self-understanding by users.

In 2021, actor Will Smith revealed during an interview with Oprah Winfrey that he drank the concoction more than 12 times during a retreat in Peru, while having marital problems with his wife Jada.

Prince Harry opened up about his experiences with psychedelics, including DMT, in a livestreamed chat with controversial ‘trauma therapist’ Gabor Maté earlier this month.

The Duke of Sussex said of his use of ayahuasca: “It brought me a feeling of relaxation, release, comfort, a lightness that I was able to sustain for a period of time.”

But he said: ‘The moment I return to chaos, it dissipates. I started doing it recreationally and then realized how good it was for me. I would say it was one of the fundamental parts of my life that changed me and helped me deal with past trauma and pain.’

Prince Harry gleefully described taking the hallucinogen, describing it as “clearing the windshield” of his troubled mind.

Meanwhile, Joe Rogan, a self-proclaimed “psychedelic adventurer,” was one of the few major outlets to champion drug use in the 2010s through his Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

Mike Tyson said ayahuasca and other psychedelics saved his life, while Hunter Biden said deep travel helped him sober up.

Actress Lindsay Lohan credited drinking ayahuasca, which is created by pounding vine stems into boiling water, helped her free herself from “the remnants of my past.”

Musician Sting is also an advocate, saying that ayahuasca had convinced him that a ‘higher intelligence’ was at work.

And Aaron Rodgers, a Green Bay Packers football quarterback, revealed that he took the drugs on two separate retreats to Peru, which he credited with helping with “a lot of healing.”