Harvard Review of Psychiatry
February 20, 2018
Dawn F. Ionescu, J. Felicione, Aishwarya K. Gosai et al.
Abstract Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most prevalent conditions in psychiatry. Patients who do not respond to traditional monoaminergic antidepressant treatments have an especially difficult-to-treat type of MDD termed treatment-resistant depression. Subanesthetic doses of ketamine—a glutamatergic modulator—have shown great promise for rapidly treating patients with the most...
Journal of Affective Disorders
February 17, 2018
Mark J. Niciu, Bridget J. Shovestul, Brittany A. Jaso et al.
134 citations
Background Ketamine induces rapid and robust antidepressant effects, and many patients also describe dissociation, which is associated with antidepressant response. This follow-up study investigated whether antidepressant efficacy is uniquely related to dissociative symptom clusters. Methods Treatment-resistant patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) or bipolar disorder (BD) (n=126) drawn...
Journal of Psychiatric Research
February 10, 2018
Andrew P. Allen, Maura Naughton, J. Dowling et al.
53 citations
Current first-line antidepressants can take weeks or months to decrease depressive symptoms. Low dose ketamine, an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, shows potential for a more rapid antidepressant effect, with efficacy also evident in previously treatment-resistant populations. However, a greater understanding of the physiological mechanisms underlying such effects is required....
Neuropsychopharmacology
February 5, 2018
Stephanie Thiebes, Saskia Steinmann, Stjepan Curic et al.
Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) are a common positive symptom of schizophrenia. Excitatory-to-inhibitory (E/I) imbalance related to disturbed N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) functioning has been suggested as a possible mechanism underlying altered connectivity and AVH in schizophrenia. The current study examined the effects of ketamine, a NMDAR antagonist, on glutamate-related...
Acta Neuropsychiatrica
February 1, 2018
V. S. Pereira, V. A. Hiroaki-Sato
Objective Although monoaminergic-targeted drugs have prompted great advances in the development of treatments for depression, the need for new options persists, since these drugs still have a delayed clinical effect and most patients do not respond properly to them. Recently, the observation of the antidepressant effects of ketamine brought on a new wave of studies regarding the comprehension...
Journal of Affective Disorders
February 2018
Gerrit I Van Schalkwyk, Samuel T. Wilkinson, Larry Davidson et al.
Ketamine has rapid-acting antidepressant effects. Frequently, ketamine administration also causes acute psychoactive effects - in trials, these effects are commonly measured using the Clinician Administered Dissociative State Scale (CADSS). However, the CADSS was not designed for this specific purpose, having been validated in other clinical contexts, and anecdotally does not appear to fully...
Journal of Psychopharmacology
February 2018
Haiying Tang, Daniel Kukral, Yu-Wen Li et al.
Major depressive disorder is a leading cause of disability globally. Improvements in the efficacy of antidepressant therapy are needed as a high proportion (>40%) of individuals with major depressive disorder fail to respond adequately to current treatments. The non-selective N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor channel blocker, (±)-ketamine, has been reported to produce a rapid and long-lasting...
Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology
February 1, 2018
Michael Mathews, R. N. Mead, M. Galizio
The glutamate hypothesis proposes that N-Methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor hypofunction underlies cognitive and perhaps other schizophrenic symptoms. The present study used the odor span task to assess the effects of NMDA antagonists on remembering multiple stimuli in rodents. This task uses an incrementing nonmatching-to-sample procedure in which responses to a new olfactory stimulus are...
CNS Spectrums
February 1, 2018
Abigail I. Nash, M. Shawi, Jaskaran Singh et al.
Abstract Background Recognizing the importance not only of the clinician’s opinion but also of the patient’s experience and perspective, Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) utilized both clinician-reported and patient-reported outcomes in a large-scale multi-step study on antidepressant effectiveness in real-world settings. Both approaches indicate that <17% of Major...
Psychopharmacology
February 1, 2018
Randall L. Morrison, Maggie Fedgchin, Jaskaran Singh et al.
72 citations
BACKGROUND: The effect of intranasal esketamine on cognitive functioning in healthy participants is assessed in this study. METHODS: computerized test battery assessed at 1 h predose and 40 min, 2, 4, and 6 h postdose. Secondary measures included the Mental Effort Scale, Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS), and safety. RESULTS: Esketamine was associated with significant cognitive performance...
Psychopharmacology
February 1, 2018
Liana Fattore, Alessandro Piva, Mary Tresa Zanda et al.
Clinical data with 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients recently stimulated interest on the potential therapeutic use of psychedelics in disorders characterized by maladaptive memories, including substance use disorders (SUD). The rationale for the use of MDMA in PTSD and SUD is being extended to a broader beneficial "psychedelic effect,"...
Psychopharmacology
February 1, 2018
John Hartberg, Simone Garrett-Walcott, Angelo De Gioannis
66 citations
Depressive episodes are the leading cause of mental health-related hospital admissions in Australia, and 44% of those admitted have a previous history of hospitalisations for depression (Admitted patient mental health-related care: (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Aust Hospital Stat 2011-12, 2013). Despite numerous available antidepressant treatments, many patients do not respond to...
Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics
January 25, 2018
Ji‐Hye Kwon, Woo-Seok Sim, Jhuo Hong et al.
5 citations
WHAT IS KNOWN AND OBJECTIVE: Ketamine in a subanaesthetic dose has been shown to produce rapid antidepressant effects. Here, we describe a long-term follow-up case of a Korean patient with severe major depression who received repeated ketamine intravenous therapy (KIT). CASE DESCRIPTION: A 49-year-old woman with a 6-year history of treatment-resistant major depression was given KIT once every 1...
Journal watch
January 16, 2018
Peter Roy‐Byrne
With limited medication options for treatment-resistant depression, patients often turn to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), electroconvulsive
Frontiers in Pharmacology
January 15, 2018
Kristian Du Jardin, Nico Liebenberg, M. Cajina et al.
Rationale: The mechanisms responsible for the unique antidepressant properties of ketamine have only been partly resolved. Recent preclinical reports implicate the neurotransmitter serotonin [5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT)] in the antidepressant-like response of ketamine, and modulation of 5-HT1B receptors has been hypothesized to attain an important role. Objectives: To evaluate the role of...
Developmental Psychobiology
January 2018
Carlos Coronel-Oliveros, Renny Pacheco-Calderón
Schizophrenia is a complex neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by hallucinations, delusions, anhedonia, flat affect and cognitive impairments. The aim of this study was to propose a prenatal treatment with ketamine, a psychedelic drug that acts as a non-competitive inhibitor of glutamate NMDA receptors, as a neurodevelopmental animal model of schizophrenia. The drug was applied (i.m. 60...
Pharmacognosy Magazine
2018
Ken Kin Lam Yung, Zhixian Mo, Youli Guo et al.
12 citations
BACKGROUND: species that is well known for both its potent anti-addictive and neuroprotective properties. Increasing evidence supports the contributions of cAMP response element binding protein (CREB), nuclear receptor-related-1 (Nurr1), and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in modulating neural and behavioral plasticity which was induced by addictive drugs. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the...
Journal of Affective Disorders
January 1, 2018
Mu-Hong Chen, Cheng-Ta Li, Wei-Chen Lin et al.
A single low-dose ketamine infusion exhibited a rapid antidepressant effect within 1h. Despite its short biological half-life (approximately 3h), the antidepressant effect of ketamine has been demonstrated to persist for several days. However, changes in brain function responsible for the persistent antidepressant effect of a single low-dose ketamine infusion remain unclear METHODS: Twenty-four...
eNeuro
2018
S D Dolzani, M V Baratta, J M Moss et al.
Stress is a potent etiological factor in the onset of major depressive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Therefore, significant efforts have been made to identify factors that produce resilience to the outcomes of a later stressor, in hopes of preventing untoward clinical outcomes. The NMDA receptor antagonist ketamine has recently emerged as a prophylactic capable of...
The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
2018
Chittaranjan Andrade
A growing body of literature suggests that ketamine, administered in subanesthetic doses, has early-onset antidepressant action in patients with severe and even treatment-refractory depression. Many case reports, open-label studies, and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) suggest that ketamine may have dramatic antisuicidal effects, as well. This article examines the benefits of ketamine in...