A powerful psychedelic plant medicine is gaining federal and state backing, and it may offer hope to those who suffer from PTSD or addictions.

The order commits at least $50 million in federal funds to boost research on ibogaine, a powerful hallucinogen.

InvestigateTV+ examines a drug off-limits to science for decades that could be the key to treating first responders battling hidden traumas.

Researchers at Mass General Brigham, the Broad Trauma Initiative, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health have identified scalable, blood-based biomarkers associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) across multiple organ systems.

“There’s a need for this because there’s been sort of rumblings in the scientific community that psychedelic medications may be very beneficial for patients who have PTSD, especially treatment-resistant PTSD,” Associate Professor Dr. Katherine Schafer at Vanderbilt University Medical Center Department of Biomedical Informatics said.

For many people, the hardest part of healing from the effects of prolonged emotional trauma may be not knowing what they are dealing with in the first place.

This naturally occurring substance, derived from an African shrub, has been used to treat PTSD, brain trauma, depression, addiction and other disorders.

Post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms can overlap with those of other mental health conditions and physical illnesses, like generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, and cardiovascular disease.