ABSTRACT Background: The 4–12 week lag period of conventional antidepressants creates critical vulnerability in severe depression, with peak suicide risk during the first month. While ketamine research has focused on treatment-resistant populations, its potential to eliminate this lag period in non-treatment-resistant severe depression remains unexplored. Aims: To evaluate whether add-on...
Background: Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) involving exposure and response prevention is the gold standard psychotherapeutic intervention for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, applying traditional CBT techniques to treat patients with predominant obsessions (POs) without covert compulsions is fraught with problems because of inaccessibility of mental compulsions. In this context,...
Dear editor, We read with great interest the article titled “Ketamine’s double-edged sword: Therapeutic benefits and adverse events in adolescent treatment-resistant obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)—A case series” by Kumar et al.,[1] which we discussed in detail during our departmental journal club. The article addresses a highly relevant and complex area in psychiatry, exploring novel...
Major depressive disorder and co-morbid substance use disorder represent a challenging dual diagnosis, characterized by persistent anhedonia, high relapse rates, and poor response to conventional antidepressants. The dextromethorphan-bupropion combination with synergistic glutamatergic and dopaminergic mechanisms provides a new treatment option. We present three male patients with alcohol or...
Psychological, social, and cultural factors influence the development of dissociative and conversion disorders. India, with its diverse cultural beliefs and socioeconomic disparities, provides a unique setting for studying the clinical presentations of these disorders. This scoping review synthesizes literature on dissociative and conversion disorders in India, focusing on their...
Treatment resistant depression (TRD) has been identified as non-response to depression with adequate dose and trial of two antidepressant medications of different classes. Near about 30% depressive patients are TRD cases. Olanzapine-fluoxetine combination, rTMS, Intravenous ketamine and Electroconvulsive therapy have been till now studied in TRD. Dextromethorphan-bupropion is a newer...
Indian Journal of PsychiatryJune 1, 2025Suparna Kumar, Jigyansa Ipsita Pattnaik, Udit Kumar Panda et al.3 citations
About one-third of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) cases show poor response to first-line treatments. Ketamine's role in modulating glutamate, implicated in OCD pathogenesis, warrants investigation. Four adolescents with treatment-resistant OCD received ketamine infusion (0.5 mg/kg) every other day for six sessions with monitoring using the Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale...
While chemsex has been studied in several parts of the world, it has been an under-studied area in India. Anecdotally, use of substances in the context of sexual encounters has been increasing in India, especially in the population of men having sex with men. In the background of limited literature in India, this online survey aimed to assess facets related to chemsex in the country. This...
Mindfulness-based interventions have shown promise in alleviating symptoms associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and major depressive disorder (MDD). However, the specific mechanisms that drive these effects, mainly through obsessive beliefs and mental well-being, are seldom examined. To explore the mechanisms by which mindfulness influences symptom severity in adults with...
Panic disorder is associated with autonomic nervous system dysfunction and reduced heart rate variability (HRV). Enhancing HRV may help mitigate symptoms of panic disorder. This study investigated the effects of Rajyoga mindfulness meditation training on HRV in patients with panic disorder. This prospective randomized controlled trial included 110 patients with panic disorder recruited from a...
Background: Cannabis has been associated with psychopathology since ancient times, but controversies continue despite important advances in the field. This article is the fourth one in our decadal series of review articles that have been providing an update snapshot of the meandering journey of the research findings in this area. Aims: This narrative review of a comprehensive literature search...
Dear Editor, Ketamine is used off-label for indications ranging from depression to chronic pain. We know of no report of the successful use of oral ketamine, administered without psychotherapy, for complex posttraumatic stress disorder (cPTSD).[1,2] We describe a patient with chronic depression and cPTSD who failed >30 previous interventions but had dramatic and persistent relief from chronic...
Indian Journal of PsychiatrySeptember 1, 2024Bhuvana Prakash Vaidya, Sonia Shenoy, Samir Kumar Praharaj2 citations
Background: The nature of aberrant salience in schizophrenia, whether it is a state or a trait phenomenon, remains unclear. Aim: To assess and compare aberrant salience in patients with schizophrenia at different stages of the illness and to explore its association with symptom severity and medication use. Methods: A total of 113 subjects were included, comprising 83 patients with schizophrenia...
In India, the awareness about the psycho-social dimension of chronic pain is minimal among physicians and patients. The research with community-based group therapies (like mindfulness) to address the psycho-social aspects in chronic pain patients remains limited. The aim of this randomized controlled trial was to see the effects of mindfulness on pain intensity, pain catastrophizing, chronic...
Context: Cannabis use has been the most commonly used illicit psychoactive substance in India. Increasing use of cannabis has been associated with an increased risk of co-morbid psychotic spectrum disorders with worse outcomes. This risk increases with increased use in a dose-dependent manner. A very complex association exists between cannabis use and mental illness hence it is essential to...
Dissociative disorders are quite often present in emergency/casualty. Commonly seen presentations in India include dissociative convulsions, motor symptoms, possession states, at times dissociative amnesia, and dissociative fugue. Dissociative identity disorder is a very rare occurrence in the emergency setting. It is challenging to examine a patient with a dissociative disorder in the...
Sir, Psychedelic studies have reported positive results for depression and anxiety related to cancer and other life-threatening illnesses, treatment-resistant depression, and tobacco and alcohol dependence.[1] Although there are no active psychedelic research studies going on in India, there is growing interest about these substances as evident by numerous social media groups and pages with a...
Background: As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, mental health begins to be affected. In this sense, practical and low-cost solutions are necessary to minimize the impact on the population. Aim: This study aimed to determine the effect of a mindfulness-based online intervention for mental health during times of COVID-19. Method: A quasi-experimental study was carried out with pre-test and...
Twenty first century is witnessing a renewed interest in the area of psychedelic(hallucinogen) research . In western countries ,even though researches were conducted in this area as early as 1930s, subsequent ban on psychedelic molecules across the world due to widespread use and reported side effects halted the prospects of such researches. This presentation seeks to explore the past history...
Background: Gastrointestinal disorder, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), often goes misdiagnosed, leading to multiple consultations and medications. Various pharmacological and surgical treatments attempts to provide the desired relief; however, no fruitful results have been obtained so far. This often leads to poor quality of life among patients. Keeping in view, the present study explores the...
Background: Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a disorder of gastrointestinal system, characterized by abdominal pain, diarrhoea, constipation, or both. IBS-M (diarrhoea and constipation) has reported to cause significant distress to the person and often goes misdiagnosed; leading to different psychological problems such as stress, anxiety, depression, etc. These psychological problems maintain...
Many experts believes this undoubtedly that Panic is dangerous than pandemic. Fear, stress, anxiety, depression and obsession out of continuous panic state of mind would be more dangerous than the infection caused by covid19 corona virus during pandemic because if one member of a family is infected by infection than all other members of same family were found to be suffering from the stress and...
Consciousness is a riddle that has been fascinating researchers and thinkers since ages. Starting with religion and spirituality to philosophy, psychology and biology, theories have been postulated to explain this riddle. Recent experiments with modern imaging techniques and detail knowledge of anatomy and physiology to the molecular level… nothing really solved this phenomenon called...
Background This study investigated Spiritual beliefs in various types of Dissociative disorder(DD). Method Forty-four subjects diagnosed as dissociative disorder with their types according to ICD 10 diagnostic criteria, free of major comorbidities included in the study. Participants completed a self-administered questionnaire, the Spirituality Involvement and Belief Scale revised (SIBS-R) after...
The Indian population is suffering from a high prevalence of mental stress and the situation has been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mindfulness, which can also be conducted online, has been used as a stress-relieving therapy in the Western world. There is not much experience with mindfulness in the Indian population. The COVID-19 pandemic demands the development of alternative therapies...