Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science
July 1, 2025
Paul S Myles, Jayashri Kulkarni, Jessica Kasza et al.
Nitrous oxide ("laughing gas") is an NMDA receptor antagonist. In the current study, our aim was to investigate the efficacy, safety, and likely optimal dose of nitrous oxide in adults with major depressive disorder (MDD). In this phase 2b randomized, double-blind trial, 81 patients with MDD were allocated on a 1:1 basis to receive nitrous oxide or oxygen/air (control); the nitrous group was...
medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences
August 17, 2024
Charles R Conway, Ben Julian A Palanca, Thomas Zeffiro et al.
preprint
While nitrous oxide (N2O) has demonstrated antidepressant properties in treatment-resistant major depression (TRD), little is known about neural mechanisms mediating these effects. Employing serial resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI), we compared spatiotemporal effects of inhaled N2O on brain functional connectivity in TRD patients (n=14) and non-depressed healthy...
Science Translational Medicine
June 9, 2021
Peter Nagele, Ben J Palanca, Britt M Gott et al.
Nitrous oxide at 50% inhaled concentration has been shown to improve depressive symptoms in patients with treatment-resistant major depression (TRMD). Whether a lower concentration of 25% nitrous oxide provides similar efficacy and persistence of antidepressant effects while reducing the risk of adverse side effects is unknown. In this phase 2 clinical trial (NCT03283670), 24 patients with...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
July 17, 2020
Peter Nagele, Frank Brown, Victoria Bass et al.
Nitrous oxide (N2O, laughing gas) has shown early promise as a rapidly acting treatment for treatmentresistant major depression (1–3). Antidepressant effects of nitrous oxide in these studies started within 2 h and lasted up to 1 week. Due to the study design, however, it was impossible to determine whether antidepressant efficacy lasted beyond 1 week after nitrous oxide administration. There...