Exploring Colombian medicinal flora used in indigenous and campesino health systems for neuropsychiatric disorders and neuropharmacological potential: an ethnopharmacological review.

Neuropsychiatric disorders affect nearly one billion people worldwide, yet many existing psychopharmacological treatments are limited by adverse effects, drug interactions, and variable efficacy. Ethnopharmacological knowledge embedded in Indigenous health systems offers important perspectives for understanding mental and neurological distress and for informing future research on central nervous system (CNS)-active plants. Colombia, one of the world's most biodiverse countries, harbors a rich medicinal flora that is deeply embedded in Indigenous and rural cultural practices. This review synthesizes published ethnobotanical, phytochemical, and neuropharmacological literature on 42 Colombian plant species reported in Indigenous and local health systems to address conditions that may overlap with what biomedicine classifies as mental and neurological disorders. Within this review, traditional uses were analytically grouped into biomedical categories for comparative purposes, including psychoactive, stimulant, sedative, anxiolytic, and cognitive effects, while recognizing that these categories do not fully capture Indigenous epistemologies. Ayahuasca (locally called