[cbonanno]

I’m sorry, but people really need to understand how these drugs “treat addiction“. ibogaine acts on an opioid receptor. So all you’re doing is changing one opiate for another.

It acts on the KOR receptors instead of the MOR receptor, which most openly act on. But it’s not like you’re going to be cured from opioid addiction. You’re just replacing one opioid with another that doesn’t affect the respiratory system.

[Jarwain]

You say this like "oh it's just acts on a different kind of opiod receptor" means that it's not meaningfully different.

Your comment also seems to imply that this treatment involves consuming ibogaine habitually or regularly

The protocol for ibogaine treatment, according to the article and the experiments being done, do not have this requirement.

Like other treatments involving psychedelics and hallucinogens, the protocol here is that a one-off treatment, a single dose, results in meaningful improvements in both addictive behaviors and PTSD symptoms a month later and potentially longer

This is not the same as something like methadone or naltrexone, which _are_ what you describe: replacing a more harmful opiate with a less harmful one.

[cbonanno]

The effect could be totally psychosomatic, that’s the thing we don’t know at this point. The fact is that noribogaine acts on the my opioid receptor, regardless.

[Projectiboga]

Actually it purges a small amount of brain cells deep in the center of the brain, that handles automatic movement. It also seeds a bunch of cofactors stimulating nerve growth factors and that area then regrows back with less of the addiction hardwired. It also helps to prop up the mood for a couple of months to give the person a chance to get going in another direction.

[cbonanno]

Do you have something that can lead me a direction of research on this? Because I’m not finding anything.

[cluckindan]

Kappa-opioid receptor activation causes a person to feel intense dissociative dysphoria. Pretty much the opposite of why people use opioids.

[cbonanno]

I don’t think this is true.

Opioid use has been associated with numerous psychiatric symptoms, including dissociative symptoms.

https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/psychiatry/62/

[cluckindan]

That’s probably because many opioids are ligands of both mu and kappa receptors.

Menthol, for example, only activates the kappa receptor: accidentally overdosing on pure menthol felt to me like immediate doom was approaching and nothing would ever again be fine.

I don’t eat anything menthol-flavored any more. It seems like an operant conditioning agent masquerading as a flavor.