Discover Mental Health
April 15, 2022
Mani Yavi, Holim Lee, Ioline D. Henter et al.
150 citations
Ketamine and its enantiomer esketamine offer rapid antidepressant effects, often within one day, for treatment-resistant depression, with symptom improvement lasting three to seven days. Esketamine received FDA approval in 2019 as an adjunctive treatment for adults with treatment-resistant depression, administered under medical supervision due to a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy. Side effects such as dissociative symptoms, hypertension, and confusion or agitation are generally tolerable and limited to the time of treatment, though longer-term risks including abuse or dependence remain poorly understood. The drug has also been studied for suicidality, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, and social anxiety disorder. Research on ketamine may also deepen understanding of mood disorder mechanisms and guide development of new treatments.
Discover Mental Health
September 17, 2024
S K Spoelstra, R A Schoevers, S D Venema et al.
8 citations
Tobacco use disorder remains a major public health problem, and current cessation therapies have limited effectiveness. This review evaluated scientific evidence on psychedelics for smoking cessation by searching four databases up to March 2024. From 1073 articles, 8 publications met inclusion criteria, with 4 originating from a single study. Most studies focused on psilocybin (7 of 8), for which supportive evidence was suggested for treating tobacco use disorder. Research on ayahuasca, mescaline, peyote, LSD, LSA, and DMT was too limited to draw definitive conclusions. There is limited evidence that psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, may offer a potential avenue for combating tobacco use disorder, though more research is needed.
Discover Mental Health
April 17, 2024
Jon Berner, Animesh Acharjee
7 citations
Depression varies widely among individuals, making treatment selection and dosing difficult, especially for newer drugs like ketamine. In a pilot study of 29 patients with treatment-resistant depression, researchers analyzed over 300 metabolites in cerebrospinal fluid and used multivariate analysis to reduce the data to two main dimensions. The first dimension correlated age with levels of specific metabolites and depression and anxiety scores. The second dimension correlated autism scores, male gender, and cognitive fatigue with bipolar diagnosis, lithium use, and another metabolite disturbance. The findings suggest that complex, treatment-resistant depression can be mapped onto two pathophysiological domains, which may eventually guide personalized treatment choices.
Discover Mental Health
July 1, 2024
Keshav Juneja, Sabah Afroze, Zeel Goti et al.
6 citations
A systematic review examined the prevalence of ketamine abuse among people receiving ketamine treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD). The review, covering studies published between 2021 and 2023, found that reported abuse rates vary widely, underscoring the need for standardized definitions and assessment tools. The authors developed a novel screening questionnaire and assessment algorithm to identify ketamine misuse in MDD patients undergoing treatment. This tool aims to help healthcare professionals detect and address misuse promptly, improving patient safety and outcomes.
Discover Mental Health
May 28, 2024
Joshua G. Kovoor, Sanjana Santhosh, Brandon Stretton et al.
4 citations
Near-death experiences may occur in more than one-third of patients who survive cardiac arrest, according to a scoping review of 11 prospective studies from various countries. The incidence ranged from 6.3% to 39.3%, varying between in-hospital (6.3–39.3%) and out-of-hospital (18.9–21.2%) cardiac arrest. Reported content of these experiences often reflected the language of the questionnaires used rather than participants' own words. Three studies that conducted follow-up all suggested a positive life attitude change, but one found significantly higher 30-day all-cause mortality in patients with near-death experiences versus those without, in non-controlled analysis. Lasting effects may be confounded by clinical characteristics.
Discover Mental Health
April 8, 2025
Isabel Wießner, Júlia Paula Souza, Marcelo Demarzo et al.
3 citations
Mindfulness training may reduce aberrant salience—the exaggerated significance attributed to perceived elements linked to psychotic experiences—while improving attention and well-being. In a pilot study of 21 adults completing an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Health Promotion course, mindful attention and decentering increased from before the course to after and at three months post-course. Aberrant salience showed mixed changes: a factor called Heightened Cognition increased immediately after the course, while Heightened Emotionality and total aberrant salience decreased later. Greater increases in mindful attention correlated with greater decreases in Heightened Emotionality. Qualitative reports indicated improved stress management and daily integration of mindfulness practices. The findings suggest mindfulness can modulate attentional processes and reduce aberrant salience, offering a potential pathway for interventions in psychosis.
Discover Mental Health
November 16, 2025
Saranya Ts, Kiniholi Yepthomi
1 citation
Cultural narratives and communal belief systems in Nagaland strongly shape how distress is experienced, conceptualized, and addressed. Lycanthropy, often seen as a delusional disorder in Western psychiatry, is regarded by many communities as a spiritual affliction or culturally rooted manifestation of distress. Traditional healers and ritual practices continue to play a critical role in managing mental health concerns, even as modern psychiatric approaches gain visibility. The review emphasizes the importance of integrating indigenous perspectives with contemporary mental health care to foster more holistic approaches to mental well-being.
Discover Mental Health
May 25, 2026
Filip Blazek, Klara Latalova, David Krahulik et al.
Psychedelic-assisted therapy and neurostimulation both aim to alter malfunctioning brain circuits in treatment-resistant psychiatric conditions. This Perspective identifies overlapping mechanisms—neuroplasticity and network reconfiguration—that underlie both approaches. It also considers ethical, regulatory, and practical obstacles to bringing these treatments into clinical use. By connecting neuroscience, psychiatry, and policy, the authors suggest ways to incorporate these novel interventions into evidence-based, circuit-oriented mental health care.
Discover Mental Health
March 21, 2026
Martha Newson, Leor Roseman, S. Alexander Haslam
Psychedelic-assisted therapies are effective for mental health conditions but are usually delivered individually, missing opportunities to build shared social identity among participants. Group-based interventions foster empathy, connectedness, and social functioning. Integrating 'social cure' principles from social identity theory could enhance therapeutic efficacy by promoting interconnectedness in supportive group settings. This article argues for combining these approaches, which have developed separately, to provide a theoretical foundation for group-based therapies and guide responsible implementation of socially informed psychedelic treatments, leading to a more comprehensive and socially embedded mental health care model.
Discover Mental Health
March 19, 2026
Àlvar Farré-colomés, Olga Rublinetska, Oscar Soto-Angona
This review gathers all available fMRI evidence from psilocybin studies. Twenty unique datasets were identified, five of which included participants diagnosed with depression. Dropout rates were high, and most studies lacked follow-up scanning timepoints. Research has concentrated on the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, and prefrontal cortex as key regions involved in psilocybin's effects. However, methods and designs across studies are inconsistent. More research is needed to clarify psilocybin's impact on the human brain and its potential to enhance psychotherapy outcomes.
Discover Mental Health
March 7, 2026
Nicholas Fabiano, Brendon Stubbs, David W. Lawrence et al.
More than half of people with major depressive disorder do not respond to standard treatments, prompting interest in alternatives such as exercise and psychedelics. This commentary examines how these two approaches might work together. Biologically, psychedelics briefly boost brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) signaling, while exercise provides sustained BDNF elevation; psychedelics enhance neuroplasticity mainly in the cortex, whereas exercise promotes hippocampal neurogenesis; both increase serotonin release. Psychologically, psychedelics may help people adopt exercise habits, and exercise may improve emotional resilience, potentially deepening the psychedelic experience. The authors suggest that these complementary mechanisms warrant future research on their combined efficacy, tolerability, safety, and neurobiology.
Discover Mental Health
April 11, 2026
Yu Gao, Liat Zitron, Serena Guo
A six-week mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) for first-year college students led to lower DFA α1 values—a nonlinear measure of heart rate variability—during acute stress compared to an active control group, suggesting mindfulness may alter the dynamic organization of autonomic stress responses. Both groups reported reduced stress and anxiety after the intervention. No differences were found in heart rate or the linear RMSSD index. These preliminary results indicate that nonlinear HRV metrics may be especially sensitive to mindfulness-related changes in cardiovascular regulation under acute challenge.
Discover Mental Health
January 8, 2026
Mireya Velázquez-Paniagua, Laura Gómez-Virgilio, Blanca Margarita Gómez-Chavarín et al.
An eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program for medical students, professors, and administrative staff at a Mexican university reduced cortisol levels and improved burnout syndrome measures, including lower emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and a greater sense of personal accomplishment. The intervention also increased P300 amplitude, a neurophysiological metric. The pilot study included 38 participants, 84% women, mean age 28 years. The findings suggest a positive effect on burnout and related biological and neurophysiological parameters, but the authors note the need for larger, more controlled trials to confirm replicability and long-term effects.