Acute and subacute psychoactive effects of Kambô, the secretion of the Amazonian Giant Maki Frog (Phyllomedusa bicolor): retrospective reports

Introduction

Schmidt and colleagues situate Kambô—the skin secretion of the Giant Leaf Frog (Phyllomedusa bicolor)—within its indigenous Amazonian medicinal origins and its more recent adoption in Western urban healing circles. Earlier work has identified numerous bioactive peptides in the secretion (for example phyllocaerulein, phyllokinin, sauvagine and the peptide opioids dermorphin and deltorphin) and described a characteristic acute physiological reaction after application via superficial skin burns, including hypotension, vomiting, sweating and transient malaise, followed by a period of listlessness or sleep and reportedly improved stamina and clarity afterwards. Despite cultural and ritual links between Kambô and plant-derived serotonergic psychedelics such as ayahuasca, no systematic characterisation existed of whether Kambô produces acute alterations of consciousness comparable to serotonergic psychedelics, nor whether it yields comparable subacute "afterglow" effects. The study therefore set out to collect retrospective, standardised self-reports from Western Kambô users to (1) characterise acute subjective effects using validated altered-states questionnaires and allow comparisons with known psychoactive substances and (2) explore subacute effects up to 2–3 weeks after a Kambô session, including measures of persisting changes and connectedness. The investigators framed the work as exploratory and acknowledged that expectancy and ritual context might influence retrospective reports, so the emphasis was on describing the pattern and relative strength of different conscious-experience domains rather than establishing causal pharmacology.