Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis
June 24, 2026
Scot Mcintosh, Isabella Maldonado, Nickalus C Smith et al.
Iboga alkaloids, including ibogaine, its primary metabolite noribogaine, and the naturally occurring congener ibogamine, have shown promise for the treatment of substance use and other neuropsychiatric disorders but are limited by cardiotoxic effects. Safer synthetic analogs, such as oxa-noribogaine, are under active development; however, validated analytical methods for quantifying these...
Research Square
March 31, 2026
Marcus W. Meinhardt, Ivan Skorodumov, Florian Walter et al.
Abstract Alcohol use disorder is a major global health problem, and current treatments often fail to produce lasting reductions in harmful drinking1,2. Psychedelic-assisted therapies may promote durable behavioural change by enhancing brain plasticity during emotionally meaningful experiences, but progress has been limited by a lack of experimental models that capture these context-dependent...
Journal of the American Chemical Society
December 26, 2025
Christopher Hwu, Václav Havel, Xavier Westergaard et al.
2 citations
) that has a unique therapeutic potential across multiple indications, including opioid dependence, substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and traumatic brain injury (TBI). We systematically examined the effects of ibogaine, its main metabolite noribogaine, and a series of iboga analogs at monoamine neurotransmitter transporters, some of which have...
Nature Communications
September 20, 2024
Václav Havel, Andrew C Kruegel, Benjamin Bechand et al.
18 citations
Ibogaine and its main metabolite noribogaine provide important molecular prototypes for markedly different treatment of substance use disorders and co-morbid mental health illnesses. However, these compounds present a cardiac safety risk and a highly complex molecular mechanism. We introduce a class of iboga alkaloids - termed oxa-iboga - defined as benzofuran-containing iboga analogs and...
Nature
June 1, 2024
Audrey L Warren, David Lankri, Michael J. Cunningham et al.
74 citations
Psychedelic substances such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin show potential for the treatment of various neuropsychiatric disorders1-3. These compounds are thought to mediate their hallucinogenic and therapeutic effects through the serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT)) receptor 5-HT2A (ref. 4). However, 5-HT1A also plays a part in the behavioural effects of tryptamine...
Journal of the American Chemical Society
April 10, 2024
Wei-Li Lee, Xavier Westergaard, Christopher Hwu et al.
18 citations
The serotonergic transmitter system plays fundamental roles in the nervous system in neurotransmission, synaptic plasticity, pathological processes, and therapeutic effects of antidepressants and psychedelics, as well as in the gastrointestinal and circulatory systems. We introduce a novel small molecule fluorescent agent, termed SERTlight, that specifically labels serotonergic neuronal cell...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
March 4, 2024
Umed Boltaev, Hyun W. Park, Keaon R. Brown et al.
4 citations
preprint
Induction of neuroplasticity has become the dominant explanatory framework for the rapid and sustained therapeutic effects of classic psychedelics. Within this broad concept, examination of morphological neuronal plasticity, such as dendritic arbor growth, is widely used to assess the neuroplasticity effects of classic and novel psychedelics. At the molecular level, it has been reported that...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
2023
Dalibor Sames
Dalibor Sameš - Ibogaine: An Update (psychedelic molecules, 4th-5th September 2023, Prague, Czech Republic)
ACS Chemical Neuroscience
December 15, 2022
Michael J. Cunningham, Hailey A. Bock, Inis C. Serrano et al.
65 citations
Ariadne is a non-hallucinogenic analog in the phenylalkylamine chemical class of psychedelics that is closely related to an established synthetic hallucinogen, 2,5-dimethoxy-4-methyl-amphetamine (DOM), differing only by one methylene group in the α-position to the amine. Ariadne has been tested in humans including clinical trials at Bristol-Myers Company that indicate a lack of hallucinogenic...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
July 23, 2021
Václav Havel, Andrew C Kruegel, Benjamin Bechand et al.
3 citations
preprint
Abstract Substance use and related mental health epidemics are causing increasing suffering and death in diverse communities. 1,2 Despite extensive efforts focused on developing pharmacotherapies for treating substance use disorders, there is an urgent need for radically different therapeutic approaches. 3,4 Ibogaine provides an important drug prototype in this direction, as a psychoactive...
ACS Chemical Neuroscience
June 3, 2020
Paola Rodrı Guez, Jessika Urbanavicius, José Pedro Prieto et al.
44 citations
Anecdotal reports and open-label case studies in humans indicated that the psychedelic alkaloid ibogaine exerts profound antiaddictive effects. Ample preclinical evidence demonstrated the efficacy of ibogaine, and its main metabolite, noribogaine, in substance-use-disorder rodent models. In contrast to addiction research, depression-relevant effects of ibogaine or noribogaine in rodents have...
ChemRxiv
March 19, 2020
Paola Rodrı́guez, Jessika Urbanavicius, José Pedro Prieto et al.
1 citation
Anecdotal reports and open label case studies in humans indicated that the psychedelic alkaloid ibogaine exert profound anti-addictive effects. Ample preclinical evidence demonstrated the efficacy of ibogaine, and its main metabolite noribogaine, in substance use disorder rodent models. In contrast to addiction research, depression-relevant effects of ibogaine or noribogaine in rodents have not...
Frontiers in Pharmacology
2019
Soledad Marton, Bruno González, Sebastián Rodríguez-bottero et al.
71 citations
Ibogaine is an atypical psychedelic alkaloid, which has been subject of research due to its reported ability to attenuate drug-seeking behavior. Recent work has suggested that ibogaine effects on alcohol self-administration in rats are related to the release of Glial cell Derived Neurotrophic Factor (GDNF) in the Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA), a mesencephalic region which hosts the soma of...
ChemRxiv
October 29, 2018
Soledad Marton, Bruno González, Sebastián Rodríguez et al.
Ibogaine is a psychedelic alkaloid which has been subject of intense scientific research due to its reported ability to attenuate drug-seeking behavior. Recent work suggested that ibogaine effects on alcohol self-administration in rats was related to the release of Glial Cell Derived Neurotrophic Factor (GDNF) in the Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA), a mesencephalic region which hosts soma of...
ACS Chemical Biology
January 15, 2016
Madalee M Gassaway, Teresa L Jacques, Andrew C Kruegel et al.
23 citations
Modulation of growth factor signaling pathways in the brain represents a new experimental approach to treating neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety, and addiction. Neurotrophins and growth factors exert synaptic, neuronal, and circuit level effects on a wide temporal range, which suggests a possibility of rapid and lasting therapeutic effects. Consequently, identification of...