Ketamine has rapid-onset antidepressant activity in patients with treatment-resistant major depression (TRD). The safety and tolerability of racemic ketamine may be improved if given orally, as an extended-release tablet (R-107), compared with other routes of administration. In this phase 2 multicenter clinical trial, male and female adult patients with TRD and Montgomery-Asberg Depression...
The Polish standard of treatment with racemic ketamine for patients with depressive disorders was developed by a Working Group appointed by the National Consultant in the field of psychiatry. Despite the wide range of available medications, as many as one-third of depressed patients do not respond to standard antidepressant treatment, raising the need for an ongoing search for new effective and...
Treating depression in adolescents is a significant challenge, and major depressive disorder (MDD) with suicidal ideation and treatment-resistant depression (TRD) are common and potentially devastating to optimal psychological and physical development in this age group. Suicide is among the leading causes of youth mortality, and TRD occurs in up to 40% of adolescents with MDD. TRD involves...
Unlike classic serotonergic psychedelics, whose psychoactive shifts are recognized as having therapeutic value, ketamine’s perceptual effects are often overshadowed by its rapid antidepressant properties. However, within a ketamine assisted psychotherapeutic (KAP) context, ketamine’s distinct anxiolytic and dissociative features can cocreate a safe setting for client-directed psycho-spiritual...
Abstract Ketamine is classified as a dissociative anaesthetic that, in sub-anaesthetic doses, can produce an altered state of consciousness characterised by dissociative symptoms, visual and auditory hallucinations, and perceptual distortions. Given the anaesthetic-like and psychedelic-like nature of this compound, it is expected to have different effects on brain dynamics in anaesthetic doses...
“Ketamine Journal” is a diaristic work of autotheory in which the author reflects on her experiences with ketamine, a psychedelic drug used in medical settings for pain management and anesthesia. The author describes the transformative effects that ketamine has on her consciousness and self-perception, and she reflects on the complex ethical and political implications of using such drugs in...
Esketamine has been revealed to improve cognitive impairments under different conditions, while its function in Alzheimer's disease (AD) has not been well characterized. We expounded the effects and detailed mechanism of esketamine in triple transgenic AD (3xTg-AD) mice in the present study. The impaired spatial learning and memory retention of 3xTg-AD mice were ameliorated by esketamine,...
Neuroscience LettersJune 21, 2024Carlos M Contreras, Ana G Gutiérrez-García4 citations
Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic that has been proposed to be a useful alternative in cases of a poor response to other treatments in patients with depression. Remarkably, beneficial clinical actions of ketamine are detected once its psychotropic actions disappear. Therefore, clinical actions may occur independently of dose. Most current studies focus on actions of ketamine on neurotrophic...
Replicated evidence indicates that ketamine and esketamine reduce measures of suicidality in persons with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). It remains uncertain whether individuals experience worsening of preexisting suicidality with either agent. The Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database was searched from 1970 and 2019 to 30 September 2023 for reports...
NMDA receptor antagonists have potential for therapeutics in neurological and psychiatric diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, substance abuse disorder (SUD), and major depressive disorder (MDD). (S)-ketamine was the first of a novel class of antidepressants, rapid-acting antidepressants, to be approved for medical use. The stereoisomer, (R)-ketamine...
Neuroimaging studies have identified the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) as one of the major targets of ketamine in the human brain, which may be related to ketamine's antidepressant (AD) mechanisms of action. However, due to different methodological approaches, different investigated populations, and varying measurement timepoints, results are not consistent, and the functional significance of...
The use of new psychoactive substances derived from ketamine is rarely reported in France. A chronic GHB, 3-MMC, and methoxetamine consumer presented a loss of consciousness in a chemsex context and was referred to the intensive care unit with a rapid and favorable outcome. To investigate the chemicals responsible for the intoxication, a comprehensive analysis was conducted on the ten plasma...
Electrophysiologic measures provide an opportunity to inform mechanistic models and possibly biomarker prediction of response. Serotonergic psychedelics (SPs) (i.e., psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)) and ketamine represent new investigational and established treatments in mood disorders respectively. There is a need to better characterize the mechanism of action of these agents. We...
Anorexia nervosa is a life-threatening psychiatric illness with a high mortality rate and limited treatment options. This illness is frequently comorbid with major depressive disorder, leading to additional obstacles in patient quality of life, and increasing the mortality rate further due to risk of suicide. Ketamine, a competitive N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist, has been shown to be...
2-Fluorodeschloroketamine (2-FDCK) is a new psychoactive substance (NPS), close to the ketamine structure. Few cases of 2-FDCK intake are described in the forensic literature, especially concerning death cases. We report here a case of self-mutilation (Case 1) and two forensic deaths linked to 2-FDCK consumption. The second case involved a man found dead in the street, having been stabbed. The...
Nature CommunicationsJune 10, 2024Andiara E Freitas, Bo Feng, Timothy Woo et al.9 citations
Single administration of low-dose ketamine has both acute and sustained anti-depressant effects. Sustained effect is associated with restoration of glutamatergic synapses in medial prefrontal cortic (mFPC) neurons. Ketamine induced profound changes in a number of molecular pathways in a mouse model for chronic stress. Cell-cell communication analyses predicted that planar-cell-polarity (PCP)...
The treatment of suicidal ideation in patients with depression has been a major problem faced by psychiatric and emergency departments, and reasonable drug selection is particularly important. Ketamine has been shown to reduce suicidal ideation rapidly, but the strength of the effect is unclear and there is little evidence-based medical evidence to support this. We systematically searched all...
Postpartum depression (PPD) is a serious mental health problem that can negatively affect future generations. BDNF/AKT/mTOR signaling in the frontal lobe and hippocampus in mice is associated with depression, but its role in mice with PPD and their offspring is unknown. This study was aimed at investigating the effects of esketamine (ESK), a drug approved for treatment of refractory depression,...
There is an urgent need for novel antidepressants, given that approximately 30% of those diagnosed with depression do not respond adequately to first-line treatment. Additionally, monoaminergic-based antidepressants have a substantial therapeutic time-lag, often taking months to reach full therapeutic effect. Ketamine, an N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist is the only current...
Ketamine is a well-known and widely available general anesthetic from the 1960s that, in sub-anesthetic doses, has been adopted in a limited manner for the treatment of acute suicidality and treatment-resistant depression. Its short onset time and short duration of action make it feasible for use at outpatient clinics. In the US, it has a long history of off-label use and was officially...