[olsen]

http://www.voanews.com/english/Scien...6-18-voa44.cfm

Brain Protein Suppresses Craving for Alcohol
By Rose Hoban
Durham, NC
18 June 2008


Increased levels of the GDNF protein in the study's rats prevented relapse, the common tendency found in sober alcoholics to easily return to heavy drinking after just one glass

Alcohol addiction – alcoholism – is a problem found in every country and every culture. Millions of alcoholics try to stop drinking, but alcohol addiction is powerful. Many who try to quit relapse and begin drinking again. Rose Hoban reports on a new approach to treating alcoholism.

Molecular biologist Dorit Ron from the University of California at San Francisco says scientists have come up with drugs to treat conditions from heart disease to psychiatric disorders, but treatments for alcoholism are lacking. She and her research colleagues decided to investigate a neuroprotein known as GDNF, glial cell-derived neurotropic factor. GDNF is a protein that is made by brain cells both nerve cells and glial cells – a type of brain cells.

"It is released from these cells and it's very important for the development of the brain," Ron explains. "And it's very important to keep certain types of nerve cells alive and healthy."


Scientists became aware of GDNF because of side effects from a hallucinogenic drug called ibocaine that became popular in the 1960s. Researchers observed that when people took ibocaine, their brains produced more GDNF. At the same time, their cravings for alcohol virtually disappeared. But ibocaine has many toxic side effects, including fatal ones.



So Ron studied just the GDNF. She trained rats in her lab to drink alcohol; they were taught to press a lever and then go to a different location to get alcohol as a reward. Ron says she likes to call the alcohol-delivery system the 'rat bar.'

"[The rats] press a lever, [as if] the rat pays [for a drink], and then it goes and gets the drink," she says. "In one experiment, the rats got a 10% alcohol solution which resembles what social drinkers get. So it's resembles people going to a restaurant or bar and having a drink or two."

Ron gave the rats GDNF using a device to pump it directly to their brains. She says the effects were almost immediate.

"The rats that received GDNF did not press the lever for alcohol any more," Ron says. "Ten minutes after they received GDNF, they basically had no desire to consume alcohol."

But one of the problems with using GDNF to treat alcoholism is that the molecule is large. It's too large, in fact, to cross the blood brain barrier, a protective tangle of blood vessels and membranes that keeps toxins from reaching the central nervous system.

For humans, as with the rats, GDNF would have to be injected directly into the brain. Ron says her lab is looking at methods to circumvent the barrier.

"One is to develop small molecules that would resemble GDNF and that will cross the blood brain barrier and will be able to be given systemically," Ron says. "Another possibility is to use things like ibogaine – without, of course, the side effects – that will be given systemically and will increase the level of GDNF in the brain."

Ron says she's working on several compounds in her lab and says she has some promising results to be published soon. Her research into GDNF is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[olsen]

Interesting (and scary) reading about ibocaine...
http://www.constitution.org/surv/ibogaine.htm

Ibogaine: Experimental treatment for drug & alcohol addiction

The following links may be useful to persons who either have an addiction or know of someone who has. While not yet legal in the U.S., there are clinics in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Europe that administer it. Support is needed for clinical testing that could lead to making it available in the U.S., because it is a natural plant extract and only one dose is required to treat addiction, providing little opportunity for profit or commercial incentive for testing.

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Hallucinogen May Cure Drug Addiction, KRON4, February 18, 2004.
Healing Transitions Institute for Addiction Recovery
Ibogaine Dossier
The Ibogaine Story: Report on the Staten Island Project
Questions for the "War on Drugs"
Erowid Ibogaine Vault
Ibogaine FAQ
Ibogaine Links
Ibogaine Association
What is Ibogaine?
African Ethnobotanicals: Tabernanthe iboga
The Ibogaine Story: A Cure for Heroin and Cocaine Addiction (1998)
Ibogaine Research Project 2004
Ibogaine, The way I see it, by Andrew Schuknect.
Conference on Ibogaine, 1999 Nov. 5 & 6, New York University School of Medicine.
Ibogaine can end Drug Addiction in 24 hours
Extraction studies of Tabernanthe iboga and Voacanga africana, Jenks CW, Nat Prod Lett 2002 Feb;16(1):71-6.
Ibogaine List
Google Search on "ibogaine".
Pass this on to others. Might help save someone's life, and eventually reduce the corrupting influences of the black market in psychoactive substances on our society and government.

[olsen]

It is not as if this is a newly discovered drug (ibogaine)http://www.med.nyu.edu/psych/ibogaineconf/program.html
Conference on Ibogaine
1999
NYU School of Medicine

[olsen]

I am still wondering if this drug has any utility in PD---seems it is an glutamate antagonist. and I wonder what the chapter title "drug discrimination studies" includes (see link at end of posting). it is not as if several of the prescribed dopamine agonists do not have hallucinatory adverse effects for some individuals. and if ibogaine could be used in a dosage that does not induce hallucinations, perhaps it could be used to increase GDNF without the need for implantation of catheters into the putamen or wherever it is those are placed. I find it fascinating that an entire book was written about this substance, and yet nothing further has developed. Yes, I know it is not patentable. And yet, GDNF is now being studied for alcohol addiction. Why not ibogaine? and yes, this natural occurring substance may have dire effects, even "fatal ones" as noted in the media alert--but so do ALL drugs. Is this substance more fatal than some of the pharmaceutical drugs on the market today? what was that quoted # of patients who die each yr due to drug adverse effects?
http://www.ibogaine.org/apcontents.html

[Fiona]

Ok, yeah, I know something about ibogaine. A little. It is one of the entheogens, or considered one of the "teacher" plants, traditionally considered to have a body of knowledge that it can communicate to us - but I know that is a little way out for some of us.

Anyways, I was just visiting a young Belgian filmmaker who has made a film about Ibogaine, and who knows many people who have worked with it. Seems like it can completely "reset" the body in a period of two or three days from addictions such as heroin or cocaine - the body is completely cleared and undependent on these substances. I have wondered about how that would work with dependency on PD drugs, but because it's unclear in many cases how much is the idiopathic disease and how much is the secondary Parkinsonism created by the medication, not sure what that would do to somebody. But there's got to be some way to find out. Especially with the whole GDNF link, it sounds kinda promising. I'll work on it.

Ibogaine is used in Africa to treat various kinds of illnesses. The experience is so intense that it takes a whole village to care for one person who is undergoing the 3-day treatment. I kind of love that idea of a whole community feeling responsible and involved in the sickness of one of its members, and committed to seeing his/her healing through.

As far as the hallucinatory aspect, many cultures would call these visions, and think of them as essential to the curative value of these substances. In Africa they often place a mirror in front of you as these visions occur, so that you have to confront the truth about yourself as part of your confrontation with the disease. SO dealing with the psychological/emotional/spiritual aspects of your life and your condition in ways that have both symbolic and shall I say psychiatric significance is integral to the healing experience. Think of it as something like reporting your dreams to your therapist and analyzing them in order to deal with your past and its effects on your present and your future.

Incidentally, in the cultures I am familiar with in South America where Ayahuasca is a sacrament (there are at least 72 different cultures which use Ayahuasca), which is also extremely hallucinatory - interestingly most of these cultures are Christian and see the visions as a way of understanding the Christian mysteries. Small children - babies even -regularly participate in the Ayahuasca ceremonies, and have visions and relay them to the rest of the community. It's kind of like putting a child to bed and saying sweet dreams - the child may have good or bad dreams, but it is all part of the healthy development of their consciousness.

[Fiona]

Having just posted the above, I came across:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...ad.php?t=23977

My friend is Ben de Loenen, mentioned in this thread, who made the film.

[reverett123]

Fiona, correct me if I am wrong, but isn't ibogaine the drug used by some of the famous to kick serious heroin habits? Seems I remember Eric Clapton going to a clinic in the early 80s or so. Supposed to be very successful.

Anything that works that quickly is bound to be interesting. Sounds like it recailbrates the system.

[olsen]

Fiona, Thank you for the information and references. The book in the link from my last posting is a compilation of all the materials presented at a conference on Ibocaine in 1999 at the NYU med school. I have a friend at the medical school library looking for a copy for me. I understand Pharma does not want to find out if this natural plant has utility--wonder if contacts to MJF foundation or the PDF would be fruitful? If this substance truly increases GDNF without requiring neurosurgery--just taking a pill--what a product!!!! madelyn

[Fiona]

Well, as Ben explains in his excellent film - or rather one of the speakers interviewed in the film whose name I am very ungraciously forgetting at this moment - this person approached many pharma companies of all sizes and focii. He said that their response was uniform in that none of them wanted to be involved because of the higher fatality rate in general of drug addicts therefore their increased liability, and because their priority is maximizing the shareholders' money which a non-maintenance drug will not do. Surprise, surprise.

Given their lack of interest in something like mucuna, which so obviously seems to be at least a compelling possible improvement on Sinemet that I thought that MJF and the like would be all over it - unless we are really talking 'cure' - well, then I wonder what would happen if we really identified a cure and it was just a plant and it wasn't very expensive? Would the world really get to find out about it? Patent search on ibogaine, anyone?

My wish is to find some kind of really brilliant chemist/neurologist person or team who knows all about the current PD meds and their effect on the body, and can also absorb and resonate with the cultural context of ibogaine, and determine how it can be used safely with people with PD. I would do it in a flash, but I am afraid because the modern medications can really conflict with the healing activity of these plants and possibly be life-threatening. The remarkable indigenous healers I have worked with say they are not sure how to interact with the energy of these medications....But I am going to try and find out more.

[Fiona]

Originally Posted by reverett123

Anything that works that quickly is bound to be interesting. Sounds like it recailbrates the system.

Yes, recallibration is what it's all about apparently, which does sound awfully good, does it not?

Here's Ben's movie:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=r-Ap5lyYcI0