Ibogaine blocks some of the rewarding effects of alcohol in rodent model of addictive behavior
A common model of addiction involves conditioning rats to associate a drug with a certain area. The amount of time the rat spends in that area indicates how addictive the stimuli is.
In a recent study, rats showed a preference to the area associated with ethanol (alcohol) over the placebo area, which was expected since alcohol is addictive.
After a dose of ibogaine (a psychedelic compound found in the African iboga shrub), they no longer expressed a preference for alcohol.
Additionally, rats showed no preference between an area associated with ibogaine and the placebo area, suggesting that ibogaine is non-addictive.
“We found that ibogaine did not have rewarding effects itself, but it did block the expression of ethanol reward in a model that can commonly be referred to as a pre-clinical model of relapse,” explains the study author, Lais F. Berro.
