Combined low-dose dexmedetomidine and esketamine during cesarean section provides a short-term improvement in early postpartum depressive symptoms, reduces intraoperative neuropsychiatric adverse events, and enhances maternal satisfaction, with a favorable maternal and neonatal safety profile.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) often co-occur, worsening outcomes, relapse rates, and treatment response. Ketamine produces rapid and sustained PTSD symptom reduction and reduces AUD relapse. Prazosin effectively treats PTSD-related nightmares and may reduce alcohol consumption in individuals with heightened autonomic reactivity. The dual complementary...
While interest in the therapeutic and recreational use of hallucinogens has increased, national surveillance often reports use in aggregate, potentially masking shifting trends among pharmacologically distinct substances. This study assessed trends in specific hallucinogens from 2021 to 2023 and identified correlates of use, with particular attention to subgroup patterns in populations commonly...
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Bipolar Depression represent significant global health burdens because about one-third of patients who receive standard monoaminergic antidepressant treatment fail to achieve remission. The population with Treatment-Resistant Depression (TRD) needs assistance because they deal with dangerous suicide risks and struggle with their daily activities. The review...
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...
Esketamine is a novel antidepressant approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2019, but comprehensive studies on the post-marketing safety evaluation of esketamine across age groups remain limited. The objective of this study is to provide the age-based pharmacovigilance profile of esketamine and the potential toxicological mechanisms, which may provide insights to inform the...
As accumulating evidence suggests the antisuicidal properties of ketamine, elucidating its underlying mechanisms and predictors of treatment response has become crucial. Whether a combination of clinical markers can enhance the prediction of the antisuicidal response to ketamine remains unclear.Using data from our previous randomized placebo-controlled and open-label trials, this post hoc...
Ketamine, an N-Methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist, is used clinically as an anesthetic and antidepressant, and is also known for its psychotomimetic effects. Its impact on brain dynamics and behavior varies significantly with dosage likely via a dose-dependent modulation of the NMDARergic transmission. Currently, it is unclear how molecular changes at the microscopic level of NMDAR...
Psychological stress not only undermines quality of life for people with cancer but also fuels tumor growth. Emerging evidence from the nascent field of cancer neuroscience suggests that adrenergic signaling from direct tumor-neuron interactions drives cancer progression, resistance to treatment, and worse outcomes. Cancer neuroscientists are increasingly seeking to repurpose psychoactive...
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...
Correction to: European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (2026) 82:13 h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 0 0 7 / s 0 0 2 2 8 -0 2 5 -0 3 9 5 4 -z At page 13, the correct version of " 60 vs. 3 days, p < 0.001, Table 3" is "60 vs. 2 days, p < 0.001, Table 3).The original article can be found online at h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 0 0 7 / s 0 0 2 2 8 -0 2 5 -0 3 9 5 4 -z
Dear editor, We read with great interest the article titled “Ketamine’s double-edged sword: Therapeutic benefits and adverse events in adolescent treatment-resistant obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)—A case series” by Kumar et al.,[1] which we discussed in detail during our departmental journal club. The article addresses a highly relevant and complex area in psychiatry, exploring novel...
Background: While ketamine is widely used in anesthesia and pain management, its non-medical use is increasing worldwide. In France, surveillance data indicate a sharp rise in ketamine-related disorders, but comprehensive characterization of affected patients and associated complications remains limited. Aims: To examine trends on ketamine in France from 2019 to 2023, and describe severe...
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...