Innovative Psychiatry
Ketamine, or “Special K” as it is commonly known, is a powerful anaesthetic that leaves the user feeling lifeless and physically detached from their senses. However, medical experts now believe the popular party drug could be the leading treatment for severe depression and suicidal thinking. According to the Washington Post, studies over the past decade […]
There are many faces to depression: sadness, hopelessness, trouble sleeping, lack of motivation, an inability to experience pleasure. That last one has a medical name—anhedonia—and people experiencing it often no longer enjoy activities that used to bring happiness. Anhedonia is not found just in depression; it can be an important part of other disorders, including […]
Key clinical point: Ketamine quickly reduces suicidal ideation even in patients whose depressive symptoms are unresponsive. Major finding: Ketamine infusions significantly reduced suicidal ideation even in patients whose treatment-resistant depression did not respond to the drug. Data source: This ongoing observational study included 27 patients with treatment-resistant depression who received seven intravenous infusions of ketamine […]
Everyone’s depression is different, but Ted, a 40-year-old resident of Portland, Oregon, describes his as a “continuous dark veil — a foul, dark, awful perspective that informs every moment of your whole life.” He’d tried to treat it with antidepressants, therapy, visits to psychiatrists, “the whole nine,” but although the antidepressants kept him functional, they […]
A hallucinogenic drug known on the street as “Special K” offers new hope to those suffering from severe, treatment-resistant depression. Ketamine, which was originally developed in the 1960s as a milder version of PCP, already has a well-established medical use as a sedative or pain killer. But since 2000, small but high-quality studies have demonstrated […]
Abstract BACKGROUND: Antidepressant response to a single sub-anesthetic dose infusion of the glutamatergic modulator ketamine is transient in most depressed patients; however, a minority continue to experience an extended response. This study examined depressive symptoms and potential clinical predictors of extended response to ketamine in subjects with mood disorders and found that a dissociative response […]
Abstract Ketamine was introduced into clinical practice in the 1960s and continues to be both clinically useful and scientifically fascinating. With considerably diverse molecular targets and neurophysiological properties, ketamine’s effects on the central nervous system remain incompletely understood. Investigators have leveraged the unique characteristics of ketamine to explore the invariant, fundamental mechanisms of anesthetic action. […]
INTRODUCTION: Ketamine’s efficacy in depressive disorders has been established in several controlled trials. The aim of the present study was to determine whether or not ketamine administration significantly improves depressive symptomatology in depression and more specifically in major depressive disorder (MDD), bipolar depression, resistant depression (non-ECT studies), and as an anesthetic agent in electroconvulsive therapy […]
Excerpts of PBS SoCal show on the drug ketamine for the treatment of depression.
Ronald S. Duman, PhD, Elizabeth Mears, Ph.D., and House Jameson, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Neurobiology and of Pharmacology at Yale School of Medicine, discuss advances in the treatment of depression. (April 2011)