Current antidepressants have shown certain limitations in the treatment of unipolar depression. Their long onset of action, interactions, and side effects are obstacles to achieving lasting remission of this prevalent, often chronic or recurrent, pathology. Faced with this clinical necessity, research efforts have intensified in recent years around psychedelic drugs, with a particular focus on...
Cell ReportsMay 21, 2025Lace M Riggs, Sage Aronson, Ta-Chung M. Mou et al.2 citations
An acute increase in excitatory synaptic transmission contributes to the rapid antidepressant actions of neuroplastogens, including ketamine and its bioactive metabolite, (2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine (HNK). It is hypothesized that drug-induced metaplastic changes in synaptic strength account for therapeutically relevant behavioral adaptations in vivo. Using the plasticity-deficient Wistar Kyoto...
BMC PsychologyMay 20, 2025Bahr Weiss, Van Vu, Hoang-Minh Dang et al.2 citations
Depression presents a substantial world-wide public health burden. Although evidence-based treatments exist, the majority of individuals with depression do not receive evidence-based treatments, particularly in low-and-middle-income countries, due to (a) scarcity of mental health professionals, and (b) mental health-related stigma. One approach addressing these issues is task-shifting, transfer...
Deviation from the balanced time perspective (DBTP) refers to difficulties in switching between different time frames in a flexible way by considering the situational demands. DBTP is associated with higher levels of depression and anxiety. Mindfulness acts as a protective mechanism against depression and anxiety. The current study examined the moderator role of mindfulness in the relationship...
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the mental health of frontline healthcare workers (HCWs), but solid evidence on psychological interventions for HCWs remains limited. Whether an adjusted therapist-assisted Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction group intervention (adjusted MBSR) is superior to a minimal self-guided mindfulness-based intervention (self-guided MBI) in improving mental...
Ketamine has a long history as an anesthetic but has recently demonstrated antidepressant effects at sub-anesthetic doses (Matveychuk et al., 2020). For individuals with treatment-resistant depression (TRD), typical antidepressants are frequently ineffective, whereas ketamine’s unique mechanisms have demonstrated promising results in reducing depressive symptoms where other treatments have...
A unified theory of emotion and motivation is updated in which motivational states are states in which instrumental goal-directed actions are performed to obtain anticipated rewards or avoid punishers, and emotional states are states that are elicited when the (conditioned or unconditioned) instrumental reward or punisher is or is not received. This advances our understanding of emotion and...
NeuropharmacologyMay 15, 2025Yazhou Wen, Jin Zhou, Huiling Yu et al.2 citations
Prenatal stress leads to postpartum depression and is associated with developmental issues in offspring. Esketamine quickly and effectively prevents or treats postpartum depression. However, the long-term effects of esketamine on progeny development are unknown. CRS during pregnancy was used to establish the postpartum depression animal model. After confirming pregnancy, all mice were randomly...
Pediatric ReportsMay 14, 2025Bruno Daniel Carneiro, Daniel Humberto Pozza, José Tiago Costa-Pereira et al.6 citations
Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) are important tools to address mental health issues in children and adolescents. However, previous studies provided variable results that suggest that the effectiveness of those third-wave Cognitive Behavioral Therapies remains uncertain. The main objective is to assess the impact of MBIs on anxiety, depression, and stress in children and adolescents. The...
Elevated levels of stress, anxiety, and depression persist among undergraduate students in Eastern countries, including Indonesia. Access to mental healthcare resources, however, remains difficult and costly for most young people. Furthermore, there is a strong tendency to avoid seeking professional help. The primary aim of this study is to investigate the effects of a brief 14-day online...
Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are widely employed in mental health promotion and treatment. Despite widespread evidence of effectiveness with different populations and delivery modes, there are sparse findings concerning the mechanisms of action in MBIs. This study, based on a secondary evaluation of two randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with student participants, was aimed at...
Understanding the effects of ketamine on depressive symptoms could help identify which patients might benefit and clarify its mechanism of action in both the early (≤1 day post-infusion) and late (e.g. 2-30 days post-infusion) post-infusion periods. Symptom network analyses could provide complementary information regarding relationships between symptoms. To identify the effects of ketamine on...
Scientific ReportsMay 12, 2025Naser M Alotaibi, Latifah Alenezi, Feddah M Ahmad et al.1 citation
The purpose of this research was to study the effectiveness of a stress management program among students at the Health Science Center (HSC), Kuwait University. This study utilized a quasiexperimental research design in which the participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: (1) the control group or (2) the experimental (intervention) group. The participants received a comprehensive...
To analyze the symptoms, courses, and severities of depressive disorder, as well as the morphological changes in the spleens and related immune mechanisms, we recruited patients with first-episode or recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD) (patient group) and healthy controls (normal group) matched in age and gender. We measured their plasma MICB (pg/ml), ULBP1 (ng/ml), and splenic volume...
PharmaceuticalsMay 9, 2025Ilaria Ammendolia, Carmen Mannucci, Emanuela Esposito et al.2 citations
Background/Objective: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common mental disorder, with a significant portion of patients developing treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Esketamine is an antagonist of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor indicated as a nasal spray in combination with other antidepressants for adults with TRD. Signals of suspected adverse reactions (SARs) to esketamine from the...
Cyberbullying victimization (CV) has been linked to numerous adverse psychological outcomes among adolescents. While previous research has established associations between CV and negative outcomes including depression, diminished self-esteem, and academic burnout, the potential protective mechanisms in these relationships remain underexplored. This longitudinal study investigated the mediating...
This study investigates the effectiveness of a 10-week Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (MBCBT) intervention in reducing symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress among elderly individuals. Psychological distress is increasingly prevalent in older adults, yet non-pharmacological interventions remain underutilized in geriatric care. Employing a quasi-experimental pre-post design,...
Repeated ketamine treatment to maintain a rapid antidepressant effect can lead to side effects over time, highlighting an unmet clinical need for sustaining this drug's antidepressant action from a single administration. Ketamine-induced synaptic potentiation at CA3-CA1 synapses has been proposed to be a key synaptic substrate for antidepressant action. Here, we found that ketamine-induced...
(S)-Ketamine, which is used to treat depression, has significant undesirable effects and has potential for abuse. A safe alternative to (S)-ketamine is (R)-ketamine. The relationship between (R)-ketamine and the mGlu5 receptor is unknown, although screening tests indicate the possibility of potentiation of the antidepressant effect of (R)-ketamine by the mGlu5 receptor negative allosteric...