Dráulio Barros de Araújo has received his bachelor's degree in physics (1995), master's in applied physics (1997), Ph.D. in physics applied to medicine and biology (2002), and post-doctorate in radiology (2002). In 2002 he joined the department of physics (USP-RP) as an assistant professor, where he later became associate professor (2008). Since 2009, he has worked as a full professor at the Brain Institute, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Brazil. From 2017 to 2019, he was a Fulbright visiting scholar at the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. He is currently interested in studying psychedelics, particularly ayahuasca. He's been using functional neuroimaging tools to assess brain changes during the effects of ayahuasca. He's also been conducting clinical trials to test the antidepressant effects of ayahuasca and completed the first randomized placebo-controlled trial (RCT) testing a psychedelic for treatment-resistant depression. He's also been exploring the nature of these effects using various methods, ranging from questionnaires and behavioral tasks to biochemical and fMRI assessments.