Ketamine pharmacotherapy provides a novel treatment option for major depressive disorder (MDD) and has generated a large, growing body of research regarding its biochemical and clinical properties. This narrative review summarizes the history of ketamine's development, beginning as a general anesthetic, continuing with a discovery of its antidepressant properties, and leading up to its landmark...
OBJECTIVE: This open-label clinical trial primarily examined the safety and tolerability of ketamine treatment in patients with mild cognitive impairment and Major Depressive Disorder (MCI-D). Preliminary efficacy was also explored. METHODS: The trial was conducted between November 2023 and March 2025. Patients with MCI-D and moderate to severe symptom levels of depression received a single...
Objective: While inflammatory dysregulation is well-documented in major depressive disorder (MDD), its response to esketamine treatment in adolescents remains poorly understood. We aimed to examine the effects of esketamine on the inflammatory cytokines in adolescent MDD. Methods: This randomized, double-blind trial assigned 49 adolescents with MDD to receive three infusions of esketamine or...
Background/Objectives: Intranasal esketamine has emerged as an effective treatment for patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD), providing rapid symptom relief when conventional antidepressant strategies fail. While its pharmacological efficacy has been demonstrated in randomized controlled trials, less attention has been paid to the organizational, relational, and multidisciplinary...
1. Esketamine as monotherapy or adjunct to conventional antidepressants is proven efficacious in clinical trials in adults with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and depression with high risk of...
Ketamine has emerged as a promising intervention for treatment-resistant mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder. With rising global mental health burdens and the limitations of existing pharmacological treatments, ketamine's novel mechanism of action provides a potential alternative for individuals who have not responded to traditional therapies....
Ketamine, esketamine, rTMS and ECT are associated with reductions in SI in persons with MDD, with the strongest evidence from randomized controlled trials supporting rapid, short-term effects, particularly for ketamine and esketamine. Further characterization and differentiation of the durability of antisuicidal effects of the aforementioned interventions requires investigation in large-scale,...
Medical Science MonitorFebruary 18, 2026Łukasz Grabarczyk, Sophia Rebekka Wolfermann, Hubert Oniszczuk et al.
Conventional antidepressant drugs are effective in only approximately 50% of patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Ketamine, a non-competitive N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist, offers a promising alternative with an exceptionally rapid antidepressant effect. Although its efficacy in the general TRD population is well established, its use in specific patient subpopulations...
Molecular PsychiatryFebruary 18, 2026Marie Huc, Sara Siddiqi, Mysa Myers et al.1 citation
Esketamine has emerged as a fast-acting antidepressant option for individuals with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Yet, little is known about how sex-assigned-at-birth shapes symptom-specific responses to these interventions, a critical gap in the move toward precision psychiatry. To address this gap, we conducted a pooled analysis of five randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled...
Abstract Aim of study: The antidepressant effect of ketamine may be at least partly due to its antioxidant activity. The aim of the study was to assess whether ketamine develops a protective effect on HT22 neuronal cells under conditions of oxidative stress (OS) induced by hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ). Material and methods The experiment was performed on an immortalized mouse hippocampal HT22...