Caution
Do not cite this vault — any version, any entry — until the fidelity audit is complete.
An active fidelity audit has confirmed that an AI-assisted PDF→markdown conversion step fabricated data in some recently added clinical-trial entries, including invented cardiac-safety values. This vault exists to make ibogaine's safety literature more trustworthy, not less — so we are saying this plainly rather than quietly patching it.
- For you, right now: treat no entry as citation-grade. Verify every figure against the primary source before relying on it — especially cardiac, dosing, and adverse-event data.
- What we're doing: entries found to contain fabricated data are being corrected or withdrawn as the audit reaches them.
- Live status & details: see FIDELITY_STATUS.md — per-paper status, what has been corrected, what has been withdrawn, and the target date for lifting this notice.
If you have already cited or relied on a vault entry, please re-check it against the original source and open an issue so we can help.
A structured evidence map for ibogaine science
Over 300 documents · 1957–2026 · 6 categories · 3,400+ cross-references · Structured YAML metadata
v1.1 in active development — analytical format expansion, web publishing, enhanced tooling. See CHANGELOG for the roadmap.
The IbogaineVault is a structured evidence map of ibogaine research. Every paper has been converted from PDF to searchable markdown with standardised clinical metadata — enabling systematic queries across seven decades of research that previously existed only as scattered, disconnected publications.
This vault originated from clinical practice at Pangea Biomedics and now serves the broader ibogaine research community. Accuracy is critical: miscategorised cardiac safety evidence can impact patient safety.
- Researchers investigating ibogaine pharmacology, safety, or clinical outcomes
- Clinicians reviewing the evidence base for ibogaine-assisted treatment
- Collaborators contributing to systematic reviews, meta-analyses, or fatality documentation
- Students and journalists seeking a navigable entry point into a fragmented literature
This is a structured evidence map, not medical advice. It does not make treatment recommendations. It synthesises and organises published evidence so that researchers and clinicians can find what they need efficiently.
Browse on GitHub — all markdown renders natively. Start from HOME.md or jump to any category hub.
Programmatic access — download papers.json (all 305 papers, all metadata fields) or papers.csv (flat export for R, Excel, or pandas). Load into any analysis environment in seconds:
import json
papers = json.load(open("papers.json"))["papers"]
# All papers with QTc data published after 2015
qtc_recent = [p for p in papers if p.get("qtc_data") and p["year"] > 2015]
# Fatality papers — deduplicated by mortality_scope (see below)
discrete_deaths = [p for p in papers if p.get("mortality_scope") == "discrete-cases"]
# Every RED cardiac safety paper with sample size > 20
cardiac_trials = [p for p in papers if p["primary_category"] == "RED" and (p.get("sample_size") or 0) > 20]Full interactive experience — clone the repository and open in Obsidian (v1.4+) for graph view, backlinks, and queryable databases. A setup script (setup_obsidian.sh) to convert links to Obsidian's native format is coming in v1.1.
Obsidian setup instructions
- Clone this repository
- Open the folder as an Obsidian vault
- Start from HOME.md — bases use native Properties (no plugins needed)
Links use standard markdown format for broad GitHub compatibility. In Obsidian, all links work natively; setup_obsidian.sh (v1.1) will additionally enable backlinks and graph traversal across cross-references.
The vault organises research into six co-equal categories. All are equally important — they serve different functions within the same research instrument.
| Category | Hub | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| 🔴 RED | Cardiac Safety | Cardiac safety, fatalities, hERG blockade, QTc, adverse events |
| 🟢 GREEN | Clinical Protocols | Screening, dosing, monitoring, clinical guidelines |
| 🟠 ORANGE | Mechanisms | Pharmacology, receptors, GDNF, analogues, PK/PD |
| 🔵 BLUE | Outcomes | Clinical trials, observational studies, efficacy data |
| 🟣 PURPLE | Phenomenology | Subjective experience, altered states, therapeutic process |
| ⚪ WHITE | Historical | Bwiti tradition, Howard Lotsof, policy, legal history |
Every paper includes structured YAML frontmatter with clinical and bibliographic metadata:
title: "Paper title"
authors: ["Author1", "Author2"]
year: 2024
doi: "10.xxxx/xxxxx"
pmid: "12345678"
pmcid: "PMC12345678"
issn: "0000-0000"
category: RED # Primary classification
secondary_categories: [GREEN, ORANGE]
tags: [topic/cardiac, topic/qtc, mechanism/herg-blockade]
evidence_level: rct # rct | cohort | case-series | case-report | ...
sample_size: 30
route: oral # oral | intravenous | intramuscular | ...
dosing_range: "8–12 mg/kg"
qtc_data: true
herg_data: false
electrolyte_data: true
mortality_count: 0
mortality_scope: cumulative-review # cumulative-review | discrete-cases | incidental
contraindications: ["pre-existing cardiac conditions", "..."]This metadata enables systematic queries: "Show all RED papers with hERG data published after 2015" or "List contraindications across all clinical trials with sample size > 20." The full schema — including all enums, field definitions, and validation rules — is defined in _meta/schema_registry.yml.
Important
Mortality scope — why this matters for accurate fatality counts
Papers that report deaths carry a mortality_scope field that classifies how the paper reports mortality: cumulative-review (a systematic tally drawing on the broader literature), discrete-cases (original case reports of individual deaths), or incidental (deaths mentioned but not the paper's primary contribution). This distinction is critical for accurate mortality analysis — naïvely summing mortality_count across papers without filtering by scope will produce inflated totals, because cumulative reviews already include deaths reported in discrete case papers. Any systematic count must deduplicate by scope.
For a complete navigable index of all ibogaine fatality literature — including cumulative reviews, discrete case reports, and baseline reference papers — see the Fatalities Hub.
The vault uses three complementary navigation layers:
- Hubs — Curated category entry points with narrative synthesis and cross-paper analysis
- MOCs (Maps of Content) — Researcher-centred navigation following individual contributors across categories
- Bases — Queryable databases for structured filtering (e.g., all papers with QTc data, all dosing protocols). Base files (
.base) use Obsidian's native Properties view; for programmatic access to the same data, usepapers.jsonorpapers.csv
IbogaineVault/
├── 1957–2026/ # Papers organised by publication year
│ └── AuthorYear_Short_Title.md
├── Hubs/ # Category hubs with cross-paper synthesis
├── MOCs/ # Researcher maps of content
├── Bases/ # Queryable databases (Obsidian Properties view;
│ ├── All_Papers.base # see papers.json for programmatic equivalent)
│ ├── Cardiac_Safety.base
│ ├── Dosing_Protocols.base
│ └── ...
├── Clinical_Guidelines/ # Treatment guidelines and protocols
├── Primary_Sources/ # Interviews, transcripts, oral history, memoirs
├── Industry_Documents/ # Organisational reports and analyses
├── Other/ # Experience reports, journalism, legal, books
├── _meta/ # Schema, taxonomy, architecture docs
│ ├── schema_registry.yml # Single source of truth for all schemas
│ ├── Tag_Taxonomy.md # 66 canonical tags
│ ├── VAULT_ARCHITECTURE.md # Three-layer navigation design
│ ├── VAULT_PRINCIPLES.md # Design philosophy and clinical principles
│ ├── METHODOLOGY.md # Conversion methodology and copyright compliance
│ └── README.md # _meta/ directory guide
├── HOME.md # Dashboard and entry point
├── GETTING_STARTED.md # Orientation guide
├── CONTRIBUTING.md # How to add papers
├── CHANGELOG.md # Version history and v1.1 roadmap
├── COPYRIGHT.md # Copyright and licensing details
├── CITATION.cff # Machine-readable citation metadata
├── LICENSE # CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
├── papers.json # Machine-readable index (all papers, all metadata)
├── papers.csv # Flat export (core fields for tabular queries)
├── validate_vault.py # Integrity validator (YAML schema, cross-references)
└── generate_index.py # Regenerates papers.json + papers.csv
- Analytical format expansion — extending structured Key Findings, Clinical Implications, and Methodology sections across all open-access papers for richer programmatic access
- Quartz web layer — a navigable research website with category-coloured graph visualisation and filtered clinical pages, no installation required
oa_classcopyright classification — per-paper open-access status field for transparent copyright and reuse information- Enhanced validation — expanded schema consistency audits, link verification, and new metadata fields
- Obsidian setup script —
setup_obsidian.shto convert links to native wikilink format for full graph and backlink features
See CHANGELOG.md for the complete version history and roadmap.
Caution
Citation is suspended pending the fidelity audit (see the notice at the top of this README and FIDELITY_STATUS.md). Please do not cite the vault or any of its entries until the audit completes and this notice is lifted. If you need to reference a specific finding in the meantime, cite the primary source directly, not this vault.
When citation resumes, the form will be:
Kagalovsky, P. (2026). IbogaineVault: A Structured Evidence Map for Ibogaine Science (v1.0.5) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19159665
See CITATION.cff for machine-readable citation metadata.
Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on adding papers, the YAML schema, tag taxonomy, and quality standards. If you identify errors or have suggestions, please open an issue.
This vault contains analytical summaries of published research, not the original publications. Source PDFs are not included. Papers from major publishers have been converted to original analytical works — structured critical analyses written in the vault curator's own voice, with reconstructed data tables and cross-reference annotations. All entries include complete YAML metadata and cross-references. For detailed methodology including copyright compliance, licence-aware conversion posture, and n-gram validation, see METHODOLOGY.
All original vault content (metadata schemas, cross-references, hub syntheses, analytical commentary) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Individual papers retain their original copyright and are referenced via DOI. See COPYRIGHT.md for full details and LICENSE for the vault licence.
The clinical framework underlying this vault was informed by the practice of Clare Wilkins (Clinical Director, Pangea Biomedics — 800+ ibogaine treatment sessions) and Sarita Wilkins (Therapeutic Integration, Pangea Biomedics).