Ibogaine is associated with reorganization of high-beta brain networks in veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating condition that affects millions of veterans. A recent observational study in 30 veterans showed that a single dose of the atypical psychedelic ibogaine can be highly effective at treating PTSD up to twelve months later. Although a prior study demonstrated that ibogaine transiently alters electroencephalography (EEG) power in various frequency bands, the long-term, network-level neural mechanisms targeted by ibogaine are unclear. Here, we investigated whether ibogaine-related clinical improvements are associated with the reorganization of certain brain networks. We applied a novel framework, FREQuency-resolved brain Network Estimation via Source Separation (FREQ-NESS), to identify frequency-specific brain networks in resting-state EEG data acquired at baseline, three to four days after treatment (immediate-post), and one month after ibogaine. At both the immediate-post and one month-post timepoints, high-beta (24 and 25 Hz) networks shifted away from frontal areas and towards posterior regions, an effect that was replicated in an independent EEG dataset on ibogaine treatment for opioid use disorder. This posterior shift was significantly correlated with improvements in PTSD symptoms at both timepoints. Neural field modeling demonstrated that these posterior high-beta shifts are associated with increases in corticocortical, but not corticothalamic, connectivity. Our results are consistent with prior evidence implicating aberrant frontal beta-band activity in PTSD. Overall, we demonstrate that the reconfiguration of high-beta brain networks could be a robust biomarker for ibogaine’s therapeutic effects.
Institutions: VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Stanford Medicine, Stanford University, Aarhus University, Royal Academy of Music, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Champalimaud Foundation, Unidade Local de Saúde de Almada-Seixal, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire des Sciences et Techniques de l’Information de la Communication et de la Connaissance, IMT Atlantique, Université de Montréal, Radboud University Nijmegen, IrisZorg, Nijmegen Institute for Scientist Practitioners in Addiction, Brainclinics, University of California, Irvine, University of Oxford, Radboud University Medical Center, Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Centers
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7140163094