Psychedelics have re-emerged as promising treatments for mood disorders. The current model provides a moderate-to-high dose of a psychedelic agent (e.g., psilocybin) to reliably induce an altered state of consciousness. Unfortunately, the hallucinatory effects limit the treatment's potential scalability given patients' vulnerability and extensive monitoring costs, leading to growing interest in...
Electrophysiologic measures provide an opportunity to inform mechanistic models and possibly biomarker prediction of response. Serotonergic psychedelics (SPs) (i.e., psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)) and ketamine represent new investigational and established treatments in mood disorders respectively. There is a need to better characterize the mechanism of action of these agents. We...
Clinical trials have demonstrated rapid antidepressant effects with intravenous (IV) ketamine for major depressive disorder, with relatively less research specifically for bipolar depression. Herein, we describe the real-world effectiveness of repeated ketamine infusions for treatment-resistant bipolar depression. This study was conducted in a community clinic in Mississauga, Ontario (Canadian...
Background: Ketamine is an emerging treatment for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) associated with rapid and robust improvements in depressive symptoms and suicidality. However, the efficacy and safety of ketamine in transitional age youth (TAY; age 18–25) populations remains understudied. Methods: In this retrospective analysis, TAY patients (n = 52) receiving ketamine for TRD were matched...
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) has high rates of comorbidity with mood disorders, including treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Comorbidity of BPD with depression is associated with poorer response to antidepressants. Intravenous ketamine is a novel treatment for TRD that has not been specifically evaluated in patients with comorbid BPD. In this retrospective analysis of data collected...
Abstract Background Clinical trials have demonstrated rapid antidepressant effects with intravenous (IV) ketamine for major depressive disorder, with relatively less research specifically for bipolar depression. Herein, we describe the real‐world effectiveness of repeated ketamine infusions for treatment‐resistant bipolar depression. Methods This study was conducted in a community clinic in...
While ketamine has been used clinically over the past decades, it has only been recently shown to be a promising therapy for treatment-resistant depression (TRD). However, ketamine and related dissociative agents may also be misused recreationally, creating significant concerns for abuse liability when prescribed for depression. Although the abuse potential of ketamine is widely recognized,...
INTRODUCTION: The large percentage of adults with major depressive disorder (MDD) insufficiently responding and/or tolerating conventional monoamine-based antidepressants invites the need for mechanistically novel treatments. Convergent evidence implicates glutamatergic signaling as a potential therapeutic target in MDD. AREAS COVERED: The synthesis herein of preclinical and clinical studies...
BACKGROUND Ketamine is established as a rapid and effective treatment in adults with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). The availability of different formulations and routes of delivery invites the need for evaluating relative effect sizes. METHODS Effect size with respect to depression symptom reduction for each formulation and route of delivery was compared at discrete time-points (i.e.,...