Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy is a promising new treatment for a variety of mental disorders of adolescence. There is currently an adolescent mental health crisis, with a high prevalence of disorders, diagnostic complexity, and many adolescents failing to respond to conventional treatments. While there is strong evidence for the use of ketamine in adults for a variety of treatment-refractory...
In the last few years, ketamine is becoming increasingly common in the treatment of mental health conditions, but there is a lack of safety data informing intramuscular and sublingual dosing in a community-focused group psychotherapy setting. The Roots To Thrive ketamine-assisted therapy (RTT-KaT) program is a unique 12-week RTT-KaT program with 12 community of practice (a form of group...
Chronic pain and depression diagnoses are skyrocketing. There is an urgent need for more effective treatments. Ketamine was recently established to alleviate pain and depression, but many gaps remain in the scientific literature. This paper reports the findings of an observational preliminary study that explored the efficacy of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAPT) for chronic pain/major...
The novel mechanisms of action (MOA) derived from some recently introduced molecular targets have led to regulatory approvals for rapid acting antidepressants (RAADs) that can generate responses within hours or days, rather than weeks or months. These novel targets include the N-methyl-D-glutamate receptor antagonist ketamine, along with its enantiomers and various derivatives, and the...
Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) often exhibit an inadequate treatment response or failure to achieve remission following treatment with antidepressant drugs. Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is proposed to identify this clinical scenario. Compared to those without TRD, patients with TRD have significantly lower health-related quality of life in mental and physical dimensions,...
Major depressive disorder (MDD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are the most common causes of emotional distress that impair an individual's quality of life. MDD is a chronic mental illness that affects 300 million people across the world. Clinical manifestations of MDD include fatigue, loss of interest in routine tasks, psychomotor agitation, impaired ability to focus, suicidal...
Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is a psychiatric condition characterized by chronic and excessive drinking despite negative consequences on overall health and social or occupational functioning. There are currently limited treatment options available for AUD, and the effects size and the response rates to these treatments are often low to moderate. The World Health Organization has identified the...
Though intravenous (IV) ketamine and intranasal (IN) esketamine are noted to be efficacious for treatment-resistant depression (TRD), access to each of these treatments within healthcare systems is limited due to cost, availability, and/or monitoring requirements. IV ketamine has been offered at two public hospital sites in Edmonton, Canada since 2015. Since then, demand for maintenance...
To evaluate the safety and histological findings of intravitreal injection of ketamine in rats. Each rat received a total volume of 0.1 ml of ketamine 0.01 mol/L (5 rats as ketamine group) or a total of 0.1 ml of normal saline 0.9% (5 rats as control group) under general anesthesia in a sterile condition. A histology assessment was performed 1 month after the intravitreal injection. Lens...
Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is associated with profound morbidity for patients, placing a significant burden on those affected, the health service and wider society. Despite this, TRD remains chronically underserved in terms of viable treatment options. To address this gap, an advisory panel of psychiatrists and clinical researchers with experience in managing TRD convened to develop...
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a devastating condition, for which there are few pharmacological agents, often with a delayed onset of action and poor efficacy. Trauma-focused psychotherapies are further limited by few trained providers and low patient engagement. This frequently results in disease chronicity as well as psychiatric and medical comorbidity, with considerable negative...
Psychedelic substances have in recent years attracted considerable interest as potential treatments for several psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety, and addiction. Imaging studies in humans point to a number of possible mechanisms underlying the acute effects of psychedelics, including changes in neuronal firing rates and excitability as well as alterations in functional...
Imaging studies of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) have examined brain activity, structure, and metabolite concentrations to identify critical areas of investigation in TRD as well as potential targets for treatment interventions. This chapter provides an overview of the main findings of studies using three imaging modalities: structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional MRI...
Evidence has suggested that the modulation of N-methyl-d-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) and 5-hydroxytryptamine receptors (5-HTRs) via the psychedelic drugs, such as ketamine and psilocybin, rapidly alters the state of consciousness and the neuroplasticity. The United State Food and Drug Administration approved the indications of esketamine for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) in 2019 and...
Cannabis use disorder (CUD) is prevalent in ~2-5% of adults in the United States and is anticipated to increase as restrictions to cannabis decrease and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content in cannabis products increase. No FDA-approved medications for CUD are currently available, despite trials of dozens of re-purposed and novel drugs. Psychedelics have garnered interest as a therapeutic class...