Scientists believe ibogaine can help veterans overcome PTSD
17 points by bushwart 4 hours ago | 12 comments
H8crilA 6 minutes ago
I always wonder why ECT doesn't get more press. It nearly always works on depression (and bipolar disorder, catatonia; anything affective-related really), although the effects may wane over time when the treatment is discontinued. Memory loss is one of the side effects, and it could be actually beneficial here.
replydacops 20 minutes ago
Only veterans?
replyI wonder about the editorial choice to use veterans rather than, say, women who have PTSD from assaults, which is a much larger group of people. (Approximately 4% of US men and 8% of US women experience PTSD every year across all reasons like accidents, sexual assaults, combat, etc.)
Presumably this treatment would help everyone? Or is it somehow supporting only vets?
neonnoodle 8 minutes ago
While I’m broadly open to research on the therapeutic applications of these drugs, right now the landscape is perilous because of the combination of illegal status and a spike in “wellness” pseudoscience. Outside of the few supervised, IBR-approved studies there is a world of (for lack of a better term) therapeutic cults that prey on some of the most psychologically vulnerable people. (related 2023 article: https://www.wired.com/story/psychedelic-therapy-mess/)
replypanflute 58 minutes ago
It seems strange to me to choose ibogaine when Salvia divinorum seems like it has a similar psychological experience without the physical heart risk.
replyrobobro 37 minutes ago
Saliva divinorum is inherently dysphoric due to its agonism of the kappa opiod receptor. For a different cheap legal drug that affects serotonin and the NMDA receptors like ibogaine does, there's always off label use of dextromethorphan (cough medicine)!
replyboxed 52 minutes ago
Or LSD, or magic mushrooms.
replygalangalalgol 41 minutes ago
I've been assuming it was some sort of profit motive as TX has been pumping money into it. It seems like there might actually be science driven though. For tramatic brain injury combined with ptsd ibogaine causes a release of glial cell factors that help neuroplasticity wire around the damage. Its also horribly unsafe from a cardiac perspective so you would need a constant eeg during therapy driving up prices. So probably a little of the original motivation too.
replytemp0826 34 minutes ago
What? These two substances aren't even in the same ballpark.
replypanflute 18 minutes ago
Maybe I have a liberal view of ballpark sizes but:
replyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine
"The action of ibogaine at the κ-opioid receptor may indeed contribute significantly to the psychoactive effects attributed to ibogaine ingestion; Salvia divinorum, another plant recognized for its strong hallucinogenic properties contains the chemical salvinorin A, which is a highly selective κ-opioid agonist"