Ketamine News and Research

RSS

Therapeutic use of ketamine may be safe, study suggests

Commonly used in medicine as an anesthetic, ketamine is also increasingly prescribed to relieve depressive symptoms. This very fast-acting psychotropic drug is particularly indicated for the treatment of patients resistant to conventional antidepressants.

4 Aug 2022

PCORI approves $258 million funding to support 26 new health care-related studies

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute has approved funding awards totaling $258 million to support 26 new research studies.

26 Jul 2022

$50 million PCORI funding approved for studies focused on treating suicidal depression and bipolar depression

Research teams at Mass General Brigham's founding members, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, have been approved for more than $50 million in funding awards by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute for studies focused on treating two important mental health conditions.

26 Jul 2022

Study identifies how ketamine works as a rapid antidepressant

Ketamine is the speedster of antidepressants, working within hours compared to more common antidepressants that can take several weeks. But ketamine can only be given for a limited amount of time because of its many side effects.

1 Jun 2022

Ketamine uses a previously unknown pathway to produce an antidepressant effect, study finds

For the 280 million people suffering from depression globally, relief cannot come fast enough. Monoaminergic antidepressants, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) take weeks to months to take effect and do not work for more than one in three patients.

26 May 2022

At US hospitals, a drug mix-up is just a few keystrokes away

More than four years ago, Tennessee nurse RaDonda Vaught typed two letters into a hospital's computerized medication cabinet, selected the wrong drug from the search results, and gave a patient a fatal dose.

29 Apr 2022

Black psychiatric patients more likely to be chemically sedated in the EDs than white counterparts

Black patients presenting at Emergency Departments (EDs) across the country with psychiatric complaints are 63 percent more likely to be chemically sedated than their white counterparts.

5 Apr 2022

Researchers find ketamine to have significant anti-depressant and anti-suicidal effects

First manufactured more than 50 years ago, ketamine is a fast-acting dissociative anesthetic often used in veterinary and emergency medicine. Ketamine also has a history of being an illicit party drug.

18 Mar 2022

Huntsman Mental Health Institute joins a national collaborative effort to tackle mood disorders

Huntsman Mental Health Institute at the University of Utah was designated a Center of Excellence and member of the National Network of Depression Centers (NNDC), a consortium of leading academic medical centers working to accelerate research, education, and improved treatment options for people with depressive and bipolar illnesses.

8 Feb 2022

Ketamine is rapid, safe, and effective in treating hospitalized suicidal patients

Ketamine is a fast acting, efficient treatment for patients hospitalized for severe suicidal thoughts (ideation), finds a clinical trial published by The BMJ today.

3 Feb 2022

ECT treatment helps more people with severe depression than ketamine

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have compared the effects of intravenous ketamine treatment with ECT treatment in severe depression.

11 Jan 2022

Ketamine plus psychological therapy can help people stay off alcohol for longer time

People with severe alcohol disorder were able to stay off alcohol for longer when they were treated with low doses of ketamine combined with psychological therapy in a clinical trial.

11 Jan 2022

New target for drug development could fill a major gap in depression treatment

Vanderbilt researchers found that ketamine's rapid antidepressant action is due to specific synaptic effects.

10 Nov 2021

Study reveals the trends in recreational ketamine use and availability in the U.S.

Recreational ketamine use and availability of the drug have increased in recent years, but it remains an uncommon drug used by less than 1 percent of people in the U.S., according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

7 Oct 2021

Ketamine use on patients with excited delirium and cocaine intoxication increases intubation rate

Patients with excited delirium who are combative, aggressive or agitated before being transported to the hospital or in an emergency department setting require immediate treatment for their safety and others.

29 Sep 2021

Researchers explore the clinical use of intravenous infusions of ketamine to treat depression

Depression is the most common mental illness as well as the number one cause of disability among people between the ages of 15 and 44. And for millions of sufferers, antidepressants have literally saved lives that could otherwise have been lost to suicide.

29 Sep 2021

Neuroscientists reveal brain mechanism related to how serotonin controls cocaine addiction

Contrary to common thinking, cocaine triggers an addiction only in 20% of the consumers. But what happens in their brains when they lose control of their consumption? Thanks to a recent experimental method, neuroscientists at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, have revealed a brain mechanism specific to cocaine, which has the particularity of triggering a massive increase in serotonin in addition to the increase in dopamine common to all drugs.

12 Sep 2021

Researchers develop statistical model to characterize how ketamine anesthesia affects the brain

By developing the first statistical model to finely characterize how ketamine anesthesia affects the brain, a team of researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and Massachusetts General Hospital have laid new groundwork for three advances: understanding how ketamine induces anesthesia; monitoring the unconsciousness of patients in surgery; and applying a new method of analyzing brain activity.

4 Sep 2021

Study finds cognitive safety of ketamine and esketamine for patients with treatment-resistant depression

Used for the treatment of depression that does not respond to standard antidepressant medications, the anesthesia drug ketamine – and the related drug esketamine, recently approved for depression treatment – has no important adverse effects on memory, attention, or other cognitive processes, concludes a systematic review of medical research in the September/October issue of Harvard Review of Psychiatry.

12 Aug 2021

Novel mechanistic insights on how ketamine exerts antidepressant effects

The discovery that the anaesthetic ketamine can help people with severe depression has raised hopes of finding new treatment options for the disease.

10 Aug 2021