CNS Spectrums
September 28, 2026
Magda Malewska-Kasprzak, Filip Rybakowski, Monika Dmitrzak-Weglarz
Intravenous ketamine is a rapid-acting intervention for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) in adults with major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder (BD). While efficacy is established, a comprehensive integration of clinical, neurophysiological, biomarker, metabolic, and cognitive predictors remains lacking, limiting precision CNS-targeted therapy. To synthesize recent evidence on...
medRxiv
September 28, 2026
Celia J. A. Morgan, David Nutt
preprint
In the KARE trial, 96 adults with severe alcohol use disorder, abstinent following detoxification, were randomised in a 2×2 factorial design to 3 weekly infusions of ketamine (0.8 mg/kg) or saline, each combined with mindfulness-based psychological support (PS) or alcohol psychoeducation (PE). We re-expressed the trial data on endpoints acceptable to regulators and compared the most and least...
Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry
September 26, 2026
Kuan-I Liu, Wei-Chen Lin, Cheng-Ta Li et al.
We examined symptom-level treatment effects and exploratory symptom networks after ketamine in treatment-resistant depression. This post hoc analysis pooled 132 participants assigned to ketamine 0.5 mg/kg or protocol-specific control (66 each) from saline-controlled 2017 and midazolam-controlled 2023 trials. Baseline- and trial-adjusted models assessed Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale...
Journal of Psychopharmacology
September 25, 2026
Jennifer Jones, Joseph Redding, Emily Amador
Tobacco use remains a leading preventable cause of morbidity and mortality. Although several pharmacotherapies and behavioral treatments for tobacco use disorder (TUD) exist, their overall efficacy is modest, underscoring the need for innovative treatment approaches. Ketamine, a rapid-acting glutamate receptor antagonist with neuroplasticity-enhancing properties, has shown promise in the...
Translational Psychiatry
September 24, 2026
Elisa Briem, Peter Stöhrmann, Gregor Dörl et al.
Abstract Ketamine induces a sequence of temporally distinct effects on brain function, yet its impact on reward processing beyond the acute post-administration phase remains unclear. In this single-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study, 28 healthy participants received 0.5 mg/kg racemic ketamine or placebo via a 40 min intravenous infusion. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was...
Journal of Education, Health and Sport
September 24, 2026
Anna Kamosińska, Julia Pająk, Olga Sławatyniec et al.
Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) in adolescents remains a major clinical challenge because of the limited efficacy of conventional antidepressants and the high risk of suicidal behavior. Ketamine has emerged as a rapidly acting antidepressant with a unique glutamatergic mechanism, promoting neuroplasticity and reducing neuroinflammation. Clinical studies demonstrate significant symptom...
Journal of Affective Disorders
September 23, 2026
Erin Curran, Kristina T. Kumpf, Mina Ansari et al.
Ketamine/esketamine produce rapid antidepressant effects, with growing interest in how acute subjective experiences and the surrounding set and setting shape clinical outcomes. Little is known about how audiovisual adjustments during ketamine/esketamine treatment influence comfort, tolerability, or patient experience, despite their common use in clinical practice. Virtual reality (VR) is one...
Journal of Personalized Medicine
September 23, 2026
Aleksandra Metelska, Wojciech Ziemichód, Hanna Karakuła-juchnowicz
Objectives: A significant problem in the treatment of depressive disorders is the growing number of cases of so-called treatment-resistant depression (TRD). There is evidence of ketamine’s effectiveness in treating TRD, with response rates ranging from 40% to 90%. This review aimed to map available studies on peripheral biomarkers of response to ketamine and esketamine in the treatment of...
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
September 23, 2026
Omer A. Syed, Rotem Petranker, Sean M. Nestor et al.
The use of ketamine as a treatment for mood disorders continues to grow in popularity. However, the differences between individuals consuming ketamine within clinical settings and those self-medicating in casual, non-clinical settings has not been yet characterized. Using the 2023 Global Psychedelic Survey, this study aimed to examine the demographic and clinical characteristics, as well as the...
Discovery medicine
September 23, 2026
Jozélio Freire de Carvalho, Eduardo Pondé de Sena
Background: Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) represents a major clinical challenge, being associated with high morbidity, increased suicide risk, and substantial socioeconomic burden. The need for rapidly acting interventions has driven the development of rapid-acting antidepressants (RAADs), such as ketamine, esketamine, and scopolamine. This study aimed to systematically review the...
International Immunopharmacology
September 22, 2026
Hanxuan Wang, Yu Huang, Qingwen Hu et al.
Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a serious neuropsychiatric disorder with a complex etiology. Neuroinflammation has received much attention as a crucial contributor to the pathogenesis of SCZ. S-propargyl-L-cysteine (SPRC), a synthesized analog of S-allyl-L-cysteine, increases endogenous hydrogen sulfide (H2S) synthesis and exerts potent antioxidative and anti-inflammatory effects. However, its potential...
npj Mental Health Research
September 22, 2026
Ramūnas Janavičius
The letter addresses critical issues in the methodology and conclusions of the meta-analysis, including inconsistencies in study design, methodological flaws in comparing correlation coefficients, and discrepancies in reported results and their interpretation. It contributes significantly to the ongoing discussion on psychedelic-assisted therapies and highlights the need for more standardized...
npj Mental Health Research
September 22, 2026
Jack D. C. Dahan, David Dadiomov, Tijmen Bostoen et al.
This response addresses methodological concerns raised regarding our meta-analysis of subjective effects and therapeutic outcomes following ketamine and psilocybin treatment. We discuss the potential influence of psychotherapy and differences in subjective-effect questionnaires across studies, acknowledging these as important limitations. We argue that these factors may partly explain observed...
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
September 21, 2026
Yang Wang, Yin Li, Zhe Chen et al.
Repeated propofol exposure during neurodevelopment induces long-term cognitive deficits in rats, potentially through dysregulated hippocampal neuronal autophagy and inhibition of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt)/mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway. Esketamine has been reported to exert neuroprotective effects; however, the underlying mechanism remains...
Journal of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry
September 21, 2026
Bo Hu, Alfonso Ortiz-Cruz, Ridhaa Sachidanandan et al.
Ketamine is an emerging therapy in psychiatry, but its implementation in the general hospital setting remains limited due to monitoring requirements, personnel allocation, and safety concerns in medically complex patients. Consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry services are well-positioned to deliver such interventions, yet practical models for doing so are lacking. To describe the...
Neuropsychopharmacology
September 21, 2026
Balwinder Singh, Hossam M Ali, Alessandro Miola et al.
Disrupted excitation-inhibition (E/I) balance involving GABA and glutamate (Glu) is implicated in the pathophysiology of depression. Ketamine, an NMDA receptor antagonist with rapid antidepressant properties, may modulate this balance, yet proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹H-MRS) studies report inconsistent findings regarding the direction, magnitude, and timing of neurochemical effects....
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
September 21, 2026
Judith Kunze, Justus Student, Sarah Tune et al.
preprint
Non-invasive proxies of cortical excitation--inhibition (E:I) balance, are increasingly used to understand human neural dynamics; especially so the aperiodic (1/f) electroencephalographic (EEG) exponent. Ketamine, an NMDA-receptor antagonist, is thought to shift this balance toward excitation. Propofol, a GABAA-receptor agonist, should behave oppositely. Here we show that these pharmacological...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
September 21, 2026
Phil Wolfson, Cody Carroll
Introduction Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) is a developing modality with broad impact on humans suffering with a variety of emotional and relationship difficulties that encompass many diagnostic entities. Our application of KAP has extended to and included the treatment of adolescents and young adults in a family therapy format. Given the increasing scope and complexity of the...
Molecular Psychiatry
September 19, 2026
Dijia Wang, Junnan Xu, Zhaoran Wang et al.
Hallucinations are a core feature of several psychiatric disorders, but the circuit mechanisms that separate perception from behavioral output remain poorly defined. Here, we combined an auditory discrimination task with AI-based pose analysis to quantify S-ketamine-induced false auditory threat responses and behavioral disorganization in mice. Control assays, including sucrose preference, loss...
Quality in Sport
September 18, 2026
Wiktoria Podlasiewicz, Aleksandra Majewska, Leon Miller et al.
Ketamine is a psychoactive substance and an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, commonly used in anesthesiology, psychiatry, and emergency medicine. Its unique dissociative properties have led to a significant global increase in recreational misuse, particularly among young adults in nightlife environments. While the medical applications of ketamine demonstrate a favorable safety...