Mark Nicolas · September 13, 2026
MAPS Ibogaine Investigator’s Brochure
The MAPS brochure describes my reward recovery model within its review of ibogaine pharmacology and clinical evidence.
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, led by Brock Pluimer, PhD, with Richard Harris, PhD, and Philippe Lucas, PhD
In 2026, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies released the first version of its Ibogaine Investigator’s Brochure. An investigator’s brochure gathers the scientific information on an investigational treatment in one place so researchers can see what is already known about its pharmacology, safety, dosing, risks, clinical evidence, and potential mechanisms.
MAPS describes this version as an evolving document rather than a finished account. The authors also acknowledge a problem particularly relevant to ibogaine: much practical knowledge exists outside the peer-reviewed literature. Traditional practitioners and experienced treatment providers have worked with iboga and ibogaine for decades, often in places where those observations never entered the formal academic record. MAPS specifically recommends that researchers engage with those groups rather than design studies based on published literature alone.
The brochure also includes my 2025 paper, Ibogaine’s Potential Role in Supporting Reward System Recovery Across Diagnostic Boundaries. More importantly, it doesn't simply list the paper in the references. The authors describe the model itself.
They summarize my proposal that GDNF induction, glutamatergic modulation, dopaminergic recalibration, and reopened neuroplasticity may act together as a larger mechanism for restoring reward system function across substance use disorder, PTSD, OCD, and eating disorders. The paper appears in the formal bibliography as Nicolas, 2025, Frontiers in Pharmacology, DOI 10.3389/fphar.2025.1744383.
The reward recovery model was proposed as a way to make sense of ibogaine’s unusually broad pharmacology and the range of conditions in which people have reported improvement. The MAPS review independently organizes much of the same biology around polypharmacology, neurotrophic signaling, glutamate, dopamine, reward circuitry, and plasticity, while remaining appropriately cautious about the limits of the clinical evidence.
The next step is empirical. If reward system recovery is actually part of the mechanism, it should be measurable. Changes in cue reactivity, reward learning, anhedonia, incentive salience, EEG, imaging, and long-term behavior should begin to align. If the model is genuinely transdiagnostic, similar patterns should eventually appear in conditions other than addiction.