The effects of noribogaine and harmaline in rats trained with ibogaine as a discriminative stimulus.
S Helsley, R A Rabin, J C Winter
Life sciences January 1, 1997 DOI: 10.1016/s0024-3205(96)00703-5 via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractRats were trained to distinguish the psychoactive drug ibogaine from water. The dose needed to produce the drug effect half the time (ED50) was 4.6 mg/kg. The drug's effect peaked at 60 minutes after injection, with 94% of responses indicating the drug was present, then declined over time; after 8 hours only 6.4% of responses were drug-appropriate. A metabolite of ibogaine, noribogaine, partially substituted for ibogaine (71.6% drug-appropriate responding), while the drug harmaline fully substituted (83.5%), suggesting shared mechanisms.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Animal discrimination study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Fischer-344 rats |
| Interventions | Ibogaine harmaline |
| Dose | 10.0 mg/kg ibogaine; ED50 4.6 mg/kg |
| Duration | Pretreatment times up to 8 hours |
| Citations | 13 |
| Key finding | Ibogaine's discriminative stimulus effects in rats peak at 60 minutes, show partial generalization to its metabolite noribogaine and full generalization to harmaline. |
Abstract
In the present investigation, Fischer-344 rats were trained to discriminate 10.0 mg/kg of ibogaine from water using a pretreatment time of 60 minutes. Analysis of dose response data generated an ED50 of 4.6 mg/kg. The time course of the ibogaine (10.0 mg/kg) cue was also determined. The stimulus reached a maximum level of 94% ibogaine-appropriate responding at the 60-min pretreatment time. This was followed by a time-dependent decrease in ibogaine-appropriate responding. At a pretreatment time of 8 hrs only 6.4% drug-appropriate responding was observed. In substitution experiments, intermediate generalization was observed with a metabolite of ibogaine, 12-hydroxyibogamine [noribogaine] (71.6%) whereas complete generalization was seen with harmaline (83.5%).