Frontiers in Psychiatry
July 20, 2026
Sergio Pérez Rosal, Sonya C. Faber, Markus Backmund
Substance use disorders (SUD) involving ketamine, cocaine, and alcohol present significant clinical challenges, often characterized by high relapse rates and limited pharmacological options. This case report details a 30-year-old male with a five-year history of severe polysubstance dependence, including daily intranasal ketamine use (2–3 g/day), cocaine, and alcohol, comorbid with recurrent...
Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery
July 4, 2026
Christopher D. Verrico, Lynnette A. Averill, Cameron J Moore et al.
INTRODUCTION: Ibogaine is a naturally occurring indole alkaloid with suggested therapeutic potential across substance use disorders, trauma-related conditions, mood disorders, and suicidality. However, its clinical translation has been hindered by safety concerns, regulatory barriers, and uncertainty regarding its complex pharmacology. Recent interest has surged in developing ibogaine analogs...
June 30, 2026
T Wagner, Gaetano Lardieri, KD Adams
Background: Opioid use disorder remains a major public health and healthcare-system challenge in Tennessee, where many adults remain untreated, undertreated, or poorly retained in care. Medically monitored ibogaine has been proposed as a potential intervention for OUD, but its economic implications in a state treatment environment have not been well characterized. We evaluated the health and...
Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly
June 29, 2026
Alison Knopf
The Michigan Society of Addiction Medicine (MiSAM) has written a letter to the Michigan legislature opposing bill HB 6020, which would use opioid settlement funds to expand research into ibogaine.
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
June 17, 2026
Martijn Arns, Kenneth Shinozuka, Joseph P Barsuglia
Abstract Ibogaine has shown early therapeutic promise for substance use disorders (SUD) and post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans, but concerns about treatment-associated cardiac arrhythmia and death have constrained clinical development. Whether this risk is uniform across indications or concentrated in specific populations is unknown. We conducted a retrospective multisite study of...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
June 12, 2026
Saeid Ghiasi
DEFENSIVE PUBLICATION NOTICE This document is published as a defensive publication to establishprior art and prevent any party from obtaining patent exclusivityover the concepts, methods, architectures, and applicationsdescribed herein. By timestamping this work on Zenodo (aCERN-operated open-access repository), the authors establish animmutable priority date. This work is released under...
Frontiers in Pharmacology
June 3, 2026
Burton J. Tabaac, Robin Carhart-Harris, Teresa Yung
Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can result in prolonged post-concussive syndrome and chronic hypoxic-ischemic brain injury (HIBI) sequelae remains therapeutically challenging with the persistence of significant neurological and cognitive impairments. While conventional treatments often provide limited relief, emerging research explores alternative therapeutic interventions, including...
DELOS Desarrollo Local Sostenible
June 3, 2026
Ana Lara Mendonça, Déborah Rezende, Gabriela Alves et al.
A ibogaína é um alcaloide indólico extraído da Tabernanthe iboga, investigado por seu possível papel na redução de sintomas de abstinência, fissura e recaída em transtornos por uso de substâncias. Este estudo teve como objetivo analisar, por meio de revisão de literatura, as evidências científicas sobre eficácia, segurança, mecanismos farmacológicos e implicações ético-regulatórias do uso da...
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
May 22, 2026
Jamie Walker, Daryle Deering, Bruno Hamish Unger
Opioid dependence is a public health concern in New Zealand, with limited treatment options beyond opioid substitution therapy (OST). Ibogaine, a psychoactive alkaloid with reported anti-withdrawal and anti-craving effects for opioid dependence, is legally available by prescription in New Zealand, offering a context for exploring user experiences. A qualitative collective case study design was...
Nature
May 1, 2019
Jonathan A. Coleman, Dongxue Yang, Zhiyu Zhao et al.
301 citations
The serotonin transporter (SERT) regulates neurotransmitter homeostasis through the sodium- and chloride-dependent recycling of serotonin into presynaptic neurons1-3. Major depression and anxiety disorders are treated using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors-small molecules that competitively block substrate binding and thereby prolong neurotransmitter action2,4. The dopamine and...
The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse
2018
Geoffrey E Noller, Chris M Frampton, Berra Yazar-Klosinski
150 citations
The psychoactive indole alkaloid ibogaine has been associated with encouraging treatment outcomes for opioid dependence. The legal status of ibogaine in New Zealand provides a unique opportunity to evaluate durability of treatment outcomes. To examine longitudinal treatment effects over a 12-month period among individuals receiving legal ibogaine treatment for opioid dependence. This...
The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse
2018
Thomas Kingsley Brown, Kenneth Alper
156 citations
Ibogaine is a monoterpene indole alkaloid used in medical and nonmedical settings for the treatment of opioid use disorder. Its mechanism of action is apparently novel. There are no published prospective studies of drug use outcomes with ibogaine. To study outcomes following opioid detoxification with ibogaine. In this observational study, 30 subjects with DSM-IV Opioid Dependence (25 males, 5...
Journal of Ethnopharmacology
January 4, 2008
Kenneth Alper, Howard S. Lotsof, Charles D. Kaplan
184 citations
Ibogaine is a naturally occurring psychoactive indole alkaloid that is used to treat substance-related disorders in a global medical subculture, and is of interest as an ethnopharmacological prototype for experimental investigation and possible rational pharmaceutical development. The subculture is also significant for risks due to the lack of clinical and pharmaceutical standards. This study...
The Journal of biological chemistry
October 5, 2007
Miriam T Jacobs, Yuan-Wei Zhang, Scott D Campbell et al.
149 citations
Ibogaine, a hallucinogenic alkaloid with purported anti-addiction properties, inhibited serotonin transporter (SERT) noncompetitively by decreasing V(max) with little change in the K(m) for serotonin (5-HT). Ibogaine also inhibited binding to SERT of the cocaine analog 2beta-2-carbomethoxy-3-(4-[(125)I]iodophenyl)tropane. However, inhibition of binding was competitive, increasing the apparent...
Journal of Neuroscience
January 19, 2005
Dao‐yao He, Nancy N. H. Mcgough, Ajay Ravindranathan et al.
181 citations
Alcohol addiction manifests as uncontrolled drinking despite negative consequences. Few medications are available to treat the disorder. Anecdotal reports suggest that ibogaine, a natural alkaloid, reverses behaviors associated with addiction including alcoholism; however, because of side effects, ibogaine is not used clinically. In this study, we first characterized the actions of ibogaine on...
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
September 1, 2000
Deborah C. Mash, Craig A. Kovera, John Pablo et al.
146 citations
Ibogaine is an indole alkaloid found in the roots of Tabernanthe Iboga (Apocynaceae family), a rain forest shrub that is native to western Africa. Ibogaine is used by indigenous peoples in low doses to combat fatigue, hunger and thirst, and in higher doses as a sacrament in religious rituals. Members of American and European addict self-help groups have claimed that ibogaine promotes long-term...
Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
1999
John Denis Fryer, Ronald J. Lukas
283 citations
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) are diverse members of the neurotransmitter-gated ion channel superfamily and play critical roles in chemical signaling throughout the nervous system. The present study establishes the acute functional effects of bupropion, phencyclidine, and ibogaine on two human nAChR subtypes. Function of muscle-type nAChR (alpha1 beta gamma delta) in TE671/RD cells...
The American Journal on Addictions
1999
Kenneth Alper, Howard S. Lotsof, Geerte M. N. Frenken et al.
201 citations
Ibogaine is an alkaloid with putative effect in acute opioid withdrawal. Thirty-three cases of treatments for the indication of opioid detoxification performed in non-medical settings under open label conditions are summarized involving an average daily use of heroin of .64 +/- .50 grams, primarily by the intravenous route. Resolution of the signs of opioid withdrawal without further drug...
Journal of Neuroscience
November 15, 1997
Elizabeth O’hearn, Mark E. Molliver
158 citations
Ibogaine, an indole alkaloid that causes hallucinations, tremor, and ataxia, produces cerebellar neurotoxicity in rats, manifested by degeneration of Purkinje cells aligned in narrow parasagittal bands that are coextensive with activated glial cells. Harmaline, a closely related alkaloid that excites inferior olivary neurons, causes the same pattern of Purkinje cell degeneration, providing a...
Brain Research
September 19, 1994
Stanley D Glick, Martin E. Kuehne, J Raucci et al.
189 citations
Ibogaine, a naturally occurring alkaloid, has been claimed to be effective in treating addiction to opioid and stimulant drugs and has been reported to decrease morphine and cocaine self-administration in rats. The present study sought to determine if other iboga alkaloids, as well as the chemically related harmala alkaloid harmaline, would also reduce the intravenous self-administration of...
Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment
1994
S G Sheppard
162 citations
A naturally occurring substance, ibogaine, was taken by seven individuals who were addicted to opiates. Ibogaine, an alkaloid with psychotropic effects at doses of 200-300 mg and above, was taken in single doses of 700-1800 mg by the subjects in the study. At the end of the 24-38-hr psychoactive period induced by the drug at these doses, none of the subjects displayed significant opiate...
European Journal of Pharmacology
September 14, 1993
S L Cappendijk, M R Dzoljic
176 citations
In order to determine the potential anti-addictive properties of ibogaine, we used the cocaine self-administration model in rats. The results indicate that a single injection of ibogaine (40 mg/kg i.p.) produced a significant decrease of cocaine intake, which remained unaltered for more than 48 h. Since the half-life time of ibogaine is short, this might suggest the involvement of one or...
Neuroscience
July 1, 1993
E O'Hearn, M E Molliver
220 citations
The indole alkaloids ibogaine and harmaline are beta-carboline derivatives that cause both hallucinations and tremor. Reports that ibogaine may have potent anti-addictive properties have led to initiatives that it be tested for the treatment of opiate and cocaine addiction. In this study, ibogaine-treated rats were analysed for evidence of neurotoxic effects because human clinical trials of...