Psychopharmacology Bulletin
August 15, 2016
Edward C Lauterbach
Dextromethorphan (DM) may have ketamine-like rapid-acting, treatment-resistant, and conventional antidepressant effects.1,2 This reports our initial experience with DM in unipolar Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). A patient with treatment-resistant MDD (failing adequate trials of citalopram and vortioxetine) with loss of antidepressant response (to fluoxetine and bupropion) twice experienced a...
Psychopharmacology
August 3, 2016
Bangkun Yang, Ji-Chun Zhang, Mei Han et al.
93 citations
RATIONALE: The N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists, including R-ketamine and rapastinel (formerly GLYX-13), show rapid antidepressant effects in animal models of depression. OBJECTIVE: We compared the rapid and sustained antidepressant effects of R-ketamine and rapastinel in the social defeat stress model. RESULTS: In the tail suspension and forced swimming tests, R-ketamine (10...
The Brown University Psychopharmacology Update
August 1, 2016
Intravenous ketamine administered twice a week or three times a week resulted in sustained antidepressant effects compared with placebo in a group of patients with treatment‐resistant depression, a new study has found. Based on similar results between the two dosing frequencies, the researchers indicated that a twice‐weekly regimen could serve as an initial repeated‐dose strategy in this...
Current behavioral neuroscience reports
June 1, 2016
Dawn F. Ionescu, George I. Papakostas
Traditional antidepressant medications generally take weeks-to-months to achieve effect. However, the breakthrough finding of ketamine's rapidly acting antidepressant properties has inspired a decade-and-a-half of progress towards the identification of treatments that work quickly-within hours-to-days. This paradigm-shift in the discovery of antidepressant therapies has significantly changed...
American Journal of Psychiatry
April 8, 2016
Jaskaran Singh, Maggie Fedgchin, Ella Daly et al.
530 citations
OBJECTIVE: Ketamine, an N-methyl-d-aspartate glutamate receptor antagonist, has demonstrated a rapid-onset antidepressant effect in patients with treatment-resistant depression. This study evaluated the efficacy of twice- and thrice-weekly intravenous administration of ketamine in sustaining initial antidepressant effects in patients with treatment-resistant depression. METHOD: In a...
Current Neuropharmacology
March 10, 2016
Eric S. Wohleb, Danielle M. Gerhard, Alex Thomas et al.
148 citations
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a prevalent neuropsychiatric disease that causes profound social and economic burdens. The impact of MDD is compounded by the limited therapeutic efficacy and delay of weeks to months of currently available medications. These issues highlight the need for more efficacious and faster-acting treatments to alleviate the burdens of MDD. Recent breakthroughs...
Psychological Medicine
February 12, 2016
Taishiro Kishimoto, J. M. Chawla, K. Hagi et al.
363 citations
Background Ketamine and non-ketamine N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor antagonists (NMDAR antagonists) recently demonstrated antidepressant efficacy for the treatment of refractory depression, but effect sizes, trajectories and possible class effects are unclear. Method We searched PubMed/PsycINFO/Web of Science/clinicaltrials.gov until 25 August 2015. Parallel-group or cross-over randomized...
The British Journal of Psychiatry
February 1, 2016
Robert A Schoevers, Tharcila V. Chaves, Sonya M. Balukova et al.
80 citations
BACKGROUND: Recent studies with intravenous (i.v.) application of ketamine show remarkable but short-term success in patients with MDD. Studies in patients with chronic pain have used different ketamine applications for longer time periods. This experience may be relevant for psychiatric indications. AIMS: To review the literature about the dosing regimen, duration, effects and side-effects of...
Journal of Affective Disorders
January 15, 2016
Megha M Vasavada, Amber M Leaver, Randall Espinoza et al.
58 citations
Ketamine elicits an acute antidepressant effect in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Here, we used diffusion imaging to explore whether regional differences in white matter microstructure prior to treatment may predict clinical response 24h following ketamine infusion in 10 MDD patients. FSL's Tract-Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) established voxel-level differences in fractional...
BMC Medical Ethics
January 14, 2016
Melvyn W. Zhang, Keith M. Harris, Roger Ho
69 citations
BACKGROUND: Depressive disorders are a common form of psychiatric illness and cause significant disability. Regulation authorities, the medical profession and the public require high safety standards for antidepressants to protect vulnerable psychiatric patients. Ketamine is a dissociative anaesthetic and a derivative of a hallucinogen (phencyclidine). Its abuse is a major worldwide public...