Psychiatry Research
May 12, 2026
Isis Lunsky, Gilmar Gutierrez, Xena Wang et al.
Postpartum Depression (PPD) is a common condition with serious consequences for both mother and baby if left untreated. Currently, few effective strategies exist for prevention of PPD. Ketamine and Esketamine are rapid acting and potent antidepressants, and emerging evidence is showing promising results for PPD. This review searched the MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases,...
Archives of Suicide Research
May 9, 2026
Gregory Carter, Maree Hackett, Stevan Nikolin et al.
Ketamine has disputed effects on suicidal ideation scores in depressed populations. This study assessed effectiveness of ketamine in adults with treatment resistant depression, examining a secondary outcome of suicidal ideation. Phase III, double-blind, randomized, active-controlled, multicenter trial. Participants were randomized to twice-weekly subcutaneous racemic ketamine or midazolam for 4...
Psychological Medicine
May 8, 2026
Lou-Anne Chavigny, Véronique Desbeaumes Jodoin, Nicolas Garel et al.
Intravenous (IV) low-dose ketamine has emerged as a promising treatment for patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). However, its impact on cognitive functioning remains unclear. This systematic review examines the cognitive and executive effects of IV ketamine in TRD, focusing on their relationship to depressive and suicidal outcomes. A systematic search of Cochrane, MEDLINE,...
Journal of Affective Disorders
May 6, 2026
Rutger Boesjes, Claudia Oosterveld, Jeanine Kamphuis et al.
1 citation
Ketamine, including its enantiomers (S)-ketamine (esketamine) and (R)-ketamine (arketamine), has demonstrated rapid antidepressant effects in major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD), yet clinical responses vary widely, highlighting the need to identify mechanisms underlying treatment efficacy and related potential predictors. Growing evidence suggests that alterations in sleep...
Neuropharmacology
May 6, 2026
Taisiia Prosvirova, Wiktoria Podolecka, Jacek Wróbel et al.
Ketamine produces rapid antidepressant effects accompanied by marked changes in fast brain rhythms. High-frequency oscillations (HFO; 130-180 Hz) are an increasingly recognized signature of ketamine across species. However, their relationship to classical gamma activity and their circuit-level organization remain unclear. Using simultaneous multiregion recordings in freely moving male Wistar...
Behavioural Pharmacology
May 6, 2026
Bart A. Ellenbroek, Gernot Riedel
The past two decades have seen a remarkable renaissance in research on psychedelic drugs and ketamine. Following decades of regulatory restriction that severely limited, especially clinical research, a growing body of evidence has shown that psychedelics such as lysergic acid diethylamide and psilocybin can have long-lasting beneficial effects for treatment-resistant depression, drug and...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
May 5, 2026
Roberto Malinow
Ketamine has been shown to reduce depression and suicidality in individuals resistant to treatment by other drugs. Exactly how ketamine works is not known. Here, I propose a new hypothesis that involves synaptic and circuit plasticity and may lead to enhanced efficacy in treating depression as well as other conditions.
The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology
May 3, 2026
Mostafa El Mansari, Naomichi Okamoto, Pierre Blier
Abstract Background In preclinical studies, an increase in α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) to N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor throughput is the predominant hypothesis posited to explain the rapid antidepressant effect of ketamine and S-ketamine. Several lines of evidence show that this AMPA increase takes place in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), which...
The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology
May 3, 2026
Kuan-I Liu, Wei-Chen Lin, Cheng-Ta Li et al.
Intravenous ketamine demonstrates rapid efficacy for treatment-resistant depression (TRD). However, its impact on individual depressive symptoms and whether the degree of treatment resistance moderates these effects remain unclear. This study aimed to dissect symptom-specific trajectories and examine the moderating role of the degree of treatment resistance. We conducted a post-hoc analysis of...
BJPsych Open
May 1, 2026
Gijsbrecht H. J. Roelandt, Jurriaan F M Strous, Jeanine Kamphuis et al.
Summary This case report presents the case of a 25-year-old woman who developed ketamine addiction following a single sub-anaesthetic dose of intranasal ketamine in a pilot study investigating intranasal racemic ketamine for acute suicidality. She had a history of depression, obsessive–compulsive disorder, autism spectrum disorder and anorexia nervosa, and she had sporadically used alcohol and...