ISSN 1541-4094, 1541-4108
26 papers in the library · 953 citations · publishing 2010-2026
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry July 8, 2026
Combining TMS and Ketamine for Treatment-Resistant Depression: Clinical Rationale, Current Evidence, and Practical Guidance.
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry July 1, 2026 Morgan S. Hardy, S. William Li, Samuel T. Wilkinson
Over the past two decades, ketamine has emerged as a rapid-acting antidepressant, especially among patients with treatment-resistant depression. As an N-methyl-d-aspartate glutamate receptor antagonist, ketamine has reshaped the understanding of the underlying neurobiological mechanisms of depression treatment. Ketamine induces a transient state of enhanced neuroplasticity and likely...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry July 1, 2026 Lynnette A. Averill, Logan Neitzke-Spruill
Psychedelic-assisted therapies (PATs) are emerging as novel combination treatments for selected stress- and trauma-related psychiatric conditions, particularly in cases where existing pharmacologic and psychotherapeutic approaches have provided limited benefit. Although current mechanistic models emphasize neuroplasticity, large-scale network changes, and modulation of neurotransmitter systems,...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry April 1, 2026 Shakila Meshkat, Manish K. Jha, Venkat Bhat
Psilocybin, a serotonergic psychedelic, has gained attention as a potential treatment for various psychiatric conditions. In this review, the authors summarize current clinical evidence related to psilocybin’s efficacy, safety, and mechanisms of action across psychiatric disorders. Findings from early-phase and small-scale clinical trials suggest rapid but variable reductions in depressive...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry April 1, 2026 Naim Zaki, Li Nancy Chen, Rosanne Lane et al.
Patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) have higher rates of relapse and pronounced decreases in daily functioning and health-related quality of life compared to patients with major depressive disorder who are not treatment-resistant, underscoring the need for treatment choices with sustained efficacy and long-term tolerability. Adults with TRD who participated in ≥1 of 6 phase 3...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry April 1, 2026 Rachel Fremont, Marcella Corwin, Greta Kandel et al.
Over the past 25 years, the field of psychiatry has seen a rapid expansion of ketamine treatment services offered for the off-label management of depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric disorders as well as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval of intranasal esketamine, the S-enantiomer of ketamine, for treatment-resistant depression and suicidal depression. In this review, the...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry April 1, 2026 Thomas Kun Pak, Stephen Kimatian, Graham J Emslie et al.
Ketamine is a well-established anesthetic agent that is gaining increasing recognition for its diverse therapeutic applications, including the management of chronic pain, refractory status epilepticus, major depressive disorder, and suicidality. Although it has been used clinically since the 1960s, multiple clinical trials with ketamine and esketamine in adults and pediatric populations are...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry 2026 Tyler Durns, Greg Iannuzzi
Psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) have remerged as agents of psychiatric and cultural relevance. However, public discourse has outpaced empirical understanding of their effects. Although hallucinogens have demonstrated a potential to treat certain mental disorders, their effect on aggression and violence risk remains inconclusive. This...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry April 1, 2025 Sophie I Elliott, Rachel B. Katz, Robert Ostroff et al. 2 citations
The effective treatment of major depressive disorder remains one of the biggest public health challenges globally. For moderate to severe cases, pharmacotherapy often falls short, leading to treatment-resistant depression. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has generally been considered the gold standard for severe cases of treatment-resistant depression. However, emerging evidence suggests that...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry July 1, 2024 Sasha Gorrell, Amanda E. Downey 3 citations
Unlike psychopharmacologic interventions for other psychiatric conditions, few medications have emerged as helpful in improving eating disorder cognitions and evidence-based psychotherapies fail many patients. Novel treatments are urgently needed to address anorexia nervosa (AN), which is increasingly prevalent and difficult to treat. This article provides an overview of preliminary...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry July 1, 2024 Samantha Shao, Tessa Gruen, Alexandra Babakanian et al. 2 citations
Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a deadly illness with no proven treatments to reverse core symptoms and no medications approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. Novel treatments are urgently needed to improve clinical outcomes. In this open-label feasibility study, 10 adult female participants (mean body mass index 19.7 kg m-2; s.d. 3.7) who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry July 1, 2024 Claire J. Foldi, Paul Liknaitzky, Martin L Williams et al.
Anorexia nervosa (AN) has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disease, yet available pharmacological treatments are largely ineffective due, in part, to an inadequate understanding of the neurobiological drivers that underpin the condition. The recent resurgence of research into the clinical applications of psychedelic medicine for a range of mental disorders has highlighted the...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry October 1, 2023 Farhan Fancy, Nelson B Rodrigues, Joshua D. Di Vincenzo et al. 4 citations
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...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry July 1, 2023 Jennifer Mitchell, Michael P. Bogenschutz, Alia Lilienstein et al. 97 citations
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) presents a major public health problem for which currently available treatments are modestly effective. We report the findings of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-site phase 3 clinical trial (NCT03537014) to test the efficacy and safety of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted therapy for the treatment of patients with...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry July 1, 2023 Allison A. Feduccia, Lisa Jerome, Berra Yazar-Klosinski et al. 24 citations
Unsuccessfully treated posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a serious and life-threatening disorder. Two medications, paroxetine hydrochloride and sertraline hydrochloride, are approved treatments for PTSD by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Analyses of pharmacotherapies for PTSD found only small to moderate effects when compared with placebo. The Multidisciplinary Association for...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry July 1, 2023 Lauren Lepow, Hirofumi Morishita, Rachel Yehuda 9 citations
As psychedelic compounds gain traction in psychiatry, there is a need to consider the active mechanism to explain the effect observed in randomized clinical trials. Traditionally, biological psychiatry has asked how compounds affect the causal pathways of illness to reduce symptoms and therefore focus on analysis of the pharmacologic properties. In psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (PAP),...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry July 2023 Rachel Fremont, Oneysha Brown, Adriana Feder et al.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a chronic and debilitating condition. Although several psychotherapeutic and pharmacological treatments are recommended for PTSD, many individuals do not respond to treatment or respond only partially, highlighting a critical need for additional treatments. Ketamine has the potential to address this therapeutic need. This review discusses how ketamine...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry October 1, 2022 Jenna M Traynor, Daniel E. Roberts, Stephen Ross et al. 14 citations
Borderline personality disorder is a complex psychiatric disorder with limited treatment options that are associated with large heterogeneity in treatment response and high rates of dropout. New or complementary treatments for borderline personality disorder are needed that may be able to bolster treatment outcomes. In this review, the authors comment on the plausibility for research on...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry April 1, 2022 Jennifer B. Dwyer, Angeli Landeros‐Weisenberger, Jessica A. Johnson et al. 51 citations
Objective: Adolescent depression is prevalent and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Although intravenous ketamine has shown efficacy in adult treatment-resistant depression, its efficacy in pediatric populations is unknown. The authors conducted an active-placebo-controlled study of ketamine's safety and efficacy in adolescents. Methods: In this proof-of-concept...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry 2021 Collin Reiff, Elon E. Richman, Charles B. Nemeroff et al. 17 citations
Objective: The authors provide an evidenced-based summary of the literature on the clinical application of psychedelic drugs in psychiatric disorders. Methods: Searches of PubMed and PsycINFO via Ovid were conducted for articles in English, in peer-reviewed journals, reporting on “psilocybin,” “lysergic acid diethylamide,” “LSD,” “ayahuasca,” “3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine,” and “MDMA,” in...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry June 17, 2020 Franklin King, Rebecca Hammond 13 citations
Although psychedelics initially showed promise in treating anxiety disorders, psychedelics were criminalized and research halted in the early 1970s. A subsequent resurgence of research into psychiatric benefits of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in the last 20 years has led to a potential paradigm shift in the treatment of numerous psychiatric disorders, including anxiety disorders. Despite...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry July 1, 2018 Gerard Sanacora, Rachel B. Katz 16 citations
A growing series of clinical trials and case series now suggest that ketamine-originally used as an anesthetic agent-potentially offers an exciting new treatment option for severe depression. Increasing numbers of studies show that ketamine can provide prompt relief for many depressed patients, including those with severe treatment-refractory depression. Although the effects of a single...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry January 24, 2018 Benjamin G. Shapero, Jonathan Greenberg, Paola Pedrelli et al. 165 citations
Mindfulness meditation has a longstanding history in eastern practices that has received considerable public interest in recent decades. Indeed, the science, practice, and implementation of Mindfulness Based Interventions (MBIs) have dramatically increased in recent years. At its base, mindfulness is a natural human state in which an individual experiences and attends to the present moment....
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry 2018 Albert Yeung, Jessie S. M. Chan, Joey C. Cheung et al. 166 citations
Qigong and Tai-Chi are traditional self-healing, self-cultivation exercises originating in ancient China. These exercises are characterized by coordinated body posture and movements, deep rhythmic breathing, meditation, and mental focus based on traditional Chinese medicine theories. Although the exact mechanisms of Qigong's and Tai-Chi's effects on physical and mental well-being are unknown,...
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry 2010 Kathy M. Sanders 369 citations
Mindfulness is a natural human mental state of moment-to-moment awareness of present experience. It is a skill that can be trained using meditation techniques that sustain focus on the present moment with a nonjudgmental attitude. Mindfulness training has been shown to be effective in relieving the suffering of numerous medical and psychological conditions while enhancing well-being. In...