A chemically optimized version of the psychedelic ibogastric acid relieves depression and addiction symptoms without triggering hallucinations or other dangerous side effects. The authors reported Wednesday in the journal Nature. The study results on rodents suggest that it may be possible to make psychedelics a mainstream treatment for psychiatric disorders. What we need is a drug that is so safe and effective that you can take it home and put it in the medicine cabinet, just like aspirin, “said study co-author Dr. Michael D. Schmitt, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, San Diego. That is what we are trying to achieve, and it is something that we can put in our medicine cabinets with only aspirin.
Ibogaine Pyshcidelics
The success of ibogaine treatment is a promising first step, said study co-author Gabriela M. Graziano, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, San Diego. This allows us to optimize the chemical compound so that it is beneficial in the clinic, “she said.
Psychedelic drugs, including ketamine and psilocybin, are promising for decades for treating mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, depression, and addiction, but doctors and researchers are wary of using them for their side effects. Olson’s team chose ibogaine because it seems to have the most frightening side effects – hallucinations and potentially fatal heart problems. Synthetic versions of the drug are difficult to manufacture in large quantities, and it is also becoming increasingly difficult to find plants that contain them naturally.
IBogaine, who comes from the roots of a West African shrub, also has excellent potential, Olson says, but it’s “the Mount Everest of psychedelics,” he says. These obstacles have made ibogaine a “Mount Everest” for psychedelic research, Olson says, because it has the potential for treating depression and addiction.
The team started with a few small allusions to the ibogaine molecule, and small studies have shown that cravings and withdrawal symptoms can be dramatically reduced. These changes lead to a substance that can cause many harmful effects such as nausea, dizziness, nausea, and vomiting but leaves intact the parts of the structure that can still have these effects. This leaves intact a portion of its design that produces many of these harmful effects, “he says.
The scientists call their formation of the Tabernanthalogs (TBG) the “formation of the TabERNANTHALogs.” The team began testing TB G on rodents, including mice trained to drink alcohol. Every single animal in the experiment reduced their alcohol intake, which is surprising, “Olson says.
TBG also helped rats addicted to heroin: light and loud cues were supposed to induce the rats to associate the drug with the drugs.
The rats that received TBG had a much lower risk of relapse, with a significant reduction in heroin overdoses and a significantly lower relapse rate.
Finally, the team tested TBG in mice for heart problems and behaviors associated with hallucinations. None of the animals that received it had any of these behaviors associated with depression. Olson, a financial partner at TB G, says psychedelic drugs based on drugs have great potential because they work differently from most conventional drugs.
But it is still unclear whether less synthetic versions of hallucinogenic drugs work, he said. One of the big questions in this area is whether you need hallucinations – like experiences to get better, “he says, but it’s really there to rewire your brain. It doesn’t mask the symptoms of your disease, “said Dr. David L. Schreiber, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco.
Regardless, Liston says, there is evidence in both directions, and it is time for scientists to finally figure out what psychedelics do and don’t do in terms of their effects on the brain and the human body.