Distinct Roles of Therapeutic Expectations and Dissociative Symptoms in Antidepressant Response During Ketamine Treatment in Routine Care
medRxiv Preprint Server April 23, 2026 Willys Cantenys, Zeynep Yoldas, Luc Masset et al. preprint
Background Ketamine is a rapid-acting antidepressant that produces acute dissociative symptoms. In routine care, the respective contributions of therapeutic expectations and dissociative symptoms to antidepressant response, and the directionality of their associations with depressive symptom change, remain poorly characterized.