RECENT NEWS
Learn more about how ketamine therapy is delivering safe and effective results.
Are anti-anxiety meds making your life worse?
Lena Dunham isn’t alone in going overboard on benzos.
Many fans felt her pain on Monday when the 32-year-old “Girls” creator revealed on a podcast that she’s newly clean after a harrowing period of misusing the prescription sedatives, which are commonly prescribed to treat panic disorders and insomnia.
How old drugs can lead to new treatments for mental illness
Pierre Blier discusses his research into using a well-known anaesthetic to help people with severe depression.

Dark hole of depression
Celebrities seem to have it all. Yet, there’s often a dark hole in that charmed life that nothing is able to fill.

Ketamine to Treat Suicidal Ideation in Major Depressive Disorder
Ketamine may represent an effective adjunct therapy in the treatment of suicidal ideation in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), according to the results of a randomized clinical trial published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Ketamine shots are a ‘powerful’ treatment for depression, doctor says
A doctor said she was astonished by how well ketamine helps patients suffering from depression.

New Ketamine Findings Give Hope To People Seeking Relief From Suicidal Thoughts
New research brings ketamine further away from its notoriety as “Special K” the club drug.

Ketamine: The Future of PTSD Treatment?
Existing treatments for PTSD are only moderately effective. Researchers hope ketamine will offer longer-term relief.

Evidence Is Mounting That The Drug Ketamine Can Actually Treat Chronic Migraines
When you hear about ketamine, you may associate it with being an illegal party drug that causes vivid hallucinations. But it's also a powerful anaesthetic, listed on the World Health Organisation's list of essential medicines.
Is ketamine a panacea for depression?
Researchers have long been intrigued by the antidepressant qualities of the club drug ketamine. Known on the street as "Special K," the drug is taken by partiers for its brief dissociative hallucinogenic effect, but it is also used medically as an anesthetic. It can banish severe depression for weeks at a time, but designer drugs that can mimic ketamine's effects on depression—without its hallucinogenic side effects—have proved difficult to develop.
If ketamine helps treat depression, why can’t doctors prescribe it?
Antidepressants are among the most commonly prescribed drugs throughout the western world. In fact, they are prescribed more than any other drug for Americans aged 18 to 44, and they are now taken four to five times more frequently than in the early 90s.
Ketamine For Severe Depression: 'How Do You Not Offer This Drug to People?'
"If you have patients that are likely to seriously injure themselves or kill themselves within a short period of time, and they've tried the standard treatments, how do you not offer this treatment?"
Onetime party drug hailed as miracle for treating severe depression
The Washington Post
After a lifetime of profound depression, 25 years of therapy and cycling through 18 antidepressants and mood stabilizers, Hartman, then 46, had settled on a date and a plan to end it all. The clinical trial would be his last attempt at salvation.
Ketamine could be speedy depression treatment video: here
Ketamine Shows Signs of Efficacy in Treating PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is highly prevalent in the United States military forces, with rates as high as 31% and 20% for Vietnam War and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) veterans, respectively. An estimated 50% of patients diagnosed with PTSD also present with chronic pain.
A vaccine for depression?
Nautilus
Ketamine's remarkable effect bolsters a new theory of mental illness. Depression is the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting 30 percent of Americans at some point in their lives.
Ketamine Could Reduce PTSD For Soldiers In Combat, Study Suggests
Although it may seem counterintuitive, a new study suggests that giving soldiers a dose of the Schedule III drug, ketamine, before going into combat could have certain benefits. The findings, published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology in January.
Ketamine offers new hope for patients with severe depression
Ketamine could save lives and offer rapid relief to many individuals for whom current treatments don’t work. It’s estimated as many as a third of patients with major depression do not get well, even after trying multiple antidepressants. And amid concerns that the development of novel antidepressants has stalled, ketamine research opens a possible avenue of treatment.
Ketamine brings depressed mice back to normal
“Depression is the second most expensive health problem that we face worldwide, but this fact is not very well known because there is a stigma attached to depression and people don’t like to talk about it,” says study leader Bernhard Lüscher, professor of biology and of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State.
History of Psychosis May Not Exclude Ketamine for Depression
Preliminary evidence from two case reports suggests that a history of psychosis should not exclude a patient with severe depression from receiving ketamine in a clinical setting, researchers say.
"There are some real concerns about whether ketamine should be used in people with psychotic disorders, based mainly on early studies suggesting that some of the immediate effects of ketamine can actually mimic some of the symptoms of psychosis," Gerard Sanacora, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry, Yale University.
Study shows ketamine may prevent PTSD symptoms
Researchers from Columbia University Medical Center, or CUMC, have discovered that a single dose of ketamine, given one week before a stressful event, has the potential to prevent post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, symptoms.
The study used mice that were given a small intravenous dose of ketamine, a drug used as a general anesthetic or rapid-acting antidepressant, and showed the potential to prevent PTSD symptoms.
Radical ketamine therapy could treat alcohol addiction
A one-off dose of the drug could help alcohol addicts reduce their intake by ‘erasing’ drink-related memories, say psychologists testing treatment
Could a Drug Prevent Depression and PTSD?
TED Talk
The path to better medicine is paved with accidental yet revolutionary discoveries. In this well-told tale of how science happens, neuroscientist Rebecca Brachman shares news of a serendipitous breakthrough treatment that may prevent mental disorders like depression and PTSD from ever developing. And listen for an unexpected — and controversial — twist.
Ketamine Could Help Cure Addiction
The study authors turn their attention to Ketamine as a potential treatment for alcoholism, pointing to a clinical trial in which 66 percent of alcoholic patients remained abstinent a full year after receiving ketamine treatment, compared with 24 percent who received non-psychedelic therapy.
Ketamine Used as Stress Vaccine?
Researchers know how to boost mice's resilience to stress, but can the same techniques be used for humans? Brachman’s results consistently showed that there are ways to build resilience to stress, by both injecting immune cells from another animal and giving a dose of ketamine prior to stress.

ASRA: Ketamine Can Treat Stubborn Migraines
Ketamine, the anesthetic-turned-club-drug-turned-depression-therapy, has had a complicated history. And growing more so all the time: a pain physician told colleagues here that the ketamine infusions may be just the ticket for patients whose migraines and other headaches just won't quit.
10 Breakthroughs That Are Poised To Transform Our Health in 2017
Cleveland Clinic recognizing ketamine therapy to be one of the most transformational breakthroughs.
Scientists are increasingly excited about ketamine, a party drug that could prevent depression
In the past five or 10 years ketamine — a drug that used to be primarily associated with psychedelically enhanced partying, K-holes, and jokes about horse tranquilizers — has captured the attention of the psychiatry community.
Can depression cause physical pain?
Is there a link between pain and depression? Pain and depression are closely related. Depression can cause pain — and pain can cause depression.

Ketamine offers hope for recurrent depression sufferers
Ketamine, used as an anaesthetic for many years, may offer hope to people suffering from recurrent depression. Researchers from Trinity College Dublin are investigating whether the drug can help people who recover from severe depression to remain well.
A One-Time Treatment Might Prevent Depression From Traumatic Stress
There might be a drug out there that somehow instills the kind of mental resilience that lets some people go through a horrible experience without reliving it in a distressing way afterward. Not everyone who goes through trauma gets depressed, but those who do have a hard time shaking it. What if instead of treating that depression, it could be prevented?
Cleveland Clinic team approved for $11.8 million to study treatment-resistant depression
Cleveland Clinic researchers have been approved for $11.8 million in funding to study ways to help patients suffering from severe depression.The focus of the research will be to examine strategies for treating patients who do not get adequate relief from initial therapy.
Through the work of Dr. Amit Anand, vice chair for research in Cleveland Clinic's Center for Behavioral Health, the study will look into and compare the effectiveness of two treatments: electroconvulsive therapy versus ketamine in patients who suffer from severe treatment-resistant depression.
Ketamine May Be The Next Great Hope In Treating Mental Illness
The largest clinical trial of ketamine for the ongoing treatment of depression has been launched across Australia and New Zealand this week.
The three-year trial involves seven research institutions, testing 200 patients who have not previously responded to existing depression medication.
Ketamine for treatment-resistant depression: recent developments and clinical applications
Approximately one-third of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) do not respond to existing antidepressants, and those who do generally take weeks to months to achieve a significant effect. There is a clear unmet need for rapidly acting and more efficacious treatments. We will review recent developments in the study of ketamine, an old anaesthetic agent which has shown significant promise as a rapidly acting antidepressant in treatment-resistant patients with unipolar MDD, focusing on clinically important aspects such as dose, route of administration and duration of effect.

Neuragain Finalizes Advisory Board For Groundbreaking Network Of Brain Health And Performance Doctors
Neuragain, LLC, a network of doctors dedicated to offering Americans cutting edge brain health and performance treatments, has assembled a world-renowned Board of Advisors.
‘Club Drug’ Ketamine Provides Hope in Fight Against Depression
Scientists are increasingly convinced that ketamine, a popular “club drug,” may be a viable treatment option for people who suffer from depression. The drug could hold particular promise for people who are suicidal, according to the results of one small study.
Depression is so common that people in the U.S. spend about $11 billion each year to relieve their symptoms. Most antidepressants work by adjusting the brain chemicals that can affect our mood, and while some are effective, the drugs are far from perfect.
How Ketamine is Curing Depression
Researchers have identified the ketamine breakdown product that gives the drug its antidepressant effects, which could lead to faster, more-effective mood stabilizers in the future.
When the antidepressant effects of ketamine were first reported a decade ago, the anesthetic drug seemed likely to change the way doctors treat the most persistent cases of depression. Since 2006, the surgical drug has been shown to work in patients with treatment-resistant depression and provide relief much faster than mood stabilizers like SSRIs.
How the Club Drug Ketamine Works to Fight Depression
A breakdown product of the drug reduces signs of depression in mice without side effects.
The popular club drug ketamine—or 'Special K'—is also a fast-acting antidepressant, but how it works has eluded scientists. Now a team reports in Nature that the mood-lifting effect may not be caused by the drug itself, but by one of the products formed when the body breaks the drug down into smaller molecules.
'Club Drug' Ketamine Rescues Suicidal Patients
A 'club drug' used as an anesthetic can help clear up the distraught thinking of people on the brink of suicide, researchers reported Tuesday.
Half the patients given infusions of ketamine said they experienced relief from their thoughts of suicide, Dr. Dawn Ionescu of Massachusetts General Hospital and colleagues reported.
Ketamine Lifts Depression via a Byproduct of its Metabolism
A chemical byproduct, or metabolite, created as the body breaks down ketamine likely holds the secret to its rapid antidepressant action, National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists and grantees have discovered. This metabolite singularly reversed depression-like behaviors in mice without triggering any of the anesthetic, dissociative, or addictive side effects associated with ketamine.

What It’s Like to Have Your Severe Depression Treated With a Hallucinogenic Drug
Everyone’s depression is different, but Ted, a 40-year-old resident of Portland, Oregon, describes his as a “continuous dark veil — a foul, dark, awful perspective that informs every moment of your whole life.” He’d tried to treat it with antidepressants, therapy, visits to psychiatrists, “the whole nine,” but although the antidepressants kept him functional, they by no means offered relief. He was getting desperate, so when his sister — an obstetrician who works in New York — mentioned the National Institute of Health was conducting experimental studies using ketamine to treat depression, he gave them a call.
Ketamine to Treat Depression in Patients Resistant to Other Drugs, Biggest Mental Health Breakthrough in 50 Years
Inquisitr
Ketamine, known as Special K in the party culture, is being used to combat severe depression and suicidal thoughts in patients who do not respond to traditional therapy.

Ketamine found to have an "unbelievable" effect in treating severe depression
Science Alert
"The most significant advance in mental health in more than half a century."

VUMC study may offer answers for treating depression in alcoholics
EurekAlert
A study by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center is offering a glimmer of hope to alcoholics who find it hard to remain sober because their abstinence is hounded by stubborn, difficult-to-treat depression.

How Ketamine Infusions Saved My Life
Motherboard
"I'm going to die soon". For months, this is what the voice inside my head told me.

Overeating & Depressed? Yale team finds connection - and maybe a solution
Yale News
Chronic overeating and stress are tied to an increased risk of depression and anxiety, and in a new
study, Yale researchers explain why that happens and suggest a possible solution.

The Search for a 'Safer' Ketamine
MedPage Today
Can glutamate drugs treat the worst cases of depression -- and keep pharma in psychiatry?

Special K Sparking New Successful Treatments For Depression Disorders
MedCareer News
Ketamine, known as Special K on the streets, has become a surprise weapon in the war
against depression.

Off-label use of transmucosal ketamine as a rapid-acting antidepressant
A retrospective chart review.

Hope for People with Bipolar Depression
The small Israeli pharma company NeuroRx is testing a novel compound of two existing drugs
to quash suicidal feelings.

Rapid Antidepressant Effects of Ketamine in Major Depression
This study examines whether Ketamine can cause a rapid-next day antidepressant effect
in patients with Major Depression/Bipolar Disorder.

5 Treatments to Help You Beat Depression When SSRIs Don’t Work
If you suffer from depression symptoms that don’t abate, or don’t abate entirely, with conventional
treatments, you’re not the only one. Treatment-resistant depression is very common.
Thirty to 40 percent of the 13 to 14 million Americans who are diagnosed with depression each year
won’t experience full recovery, or any recovery, with standard SSRI treatment.

Ketamine could be used as anti-depressant
Monitoring the effects of ketamine on the brain has revealed neural pathways that could aid
the development of fast-acting medications for treating depression.

R-ketamine: a rapid-onset & sustained antidepressant without psychotomimetic side effects
R-ketamine showed a greater potency and longer-lasting antidepressant effect...

Subanesthetic Doses of Ketamine Cause Sustained Disruptions of NMDA and AMPA-Mediated Frontoparietal Connectivity in Humans
Following the discovery of the antidepressant properties of ketamine, there has been a recent
resurgence in the interest in this NMDA receptor antagonist.

Potentially fast-acting help for depression discovered
Ketamine is known to be active in vital circuits of the brain and to disconnect two parts
which are connected in depression.

Ketamine May Benefit Children with PTSD
Ketamine may be beneficial for children with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
and episodes of severe aggression and emotional dysregulation, according to a case report
published online Aug. 10 in Pediatrics.

Depressed females have over-active glutamate receptor gene
Numerous genes that regulate the activity of a neurotransmitter in the brain have been found
to be abundant in brain tissue of depressed females.

Allergan To Buy Antidepressant Maker For $560 Million With Hopes Of Preventing Suicides
Allergan AGN -2.15%,the drug giant that is famed for Botox but also makes antibiotics
and an Alzheimer’s treatment, will spend $560 million to purchase Naurex,
an Evanston, Ill.-based developer of antidepressants that can work in hours, compared to weeks
for existing depression pills.

Could a Dose of Ketamine Prevent Psychiatric Disorders Such as PTSD?
A single low-dose injection of ketamine was found to protect the mice against stress, a risk factor
for such psychiatric disorders as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression....

Rethinking Depression Treatment At VistaGen Therapeutics
The Company is collaborating with National Institute of Health in conducting NIH-sponsored
Phase 2 clinical study of AV-101.

Israeli company offers new hope for treating severe depression
NeuroRX, run by brothers Jonathan and Daniel Javitt, is based on research spurred
by a close friend's suicide.

Ketamine’s antidepressant activity linked to specific area of prefrontal cortex
Ketamine, in use as an anesthetic since the 1960s, shows promise for a new indication – rapid and durable improvement in treatment-resistant depression.

Ketamine: The Future of Depression Treatment?
Every year, 13 million to 14 million Americans havemajor depression. Of those who seek treatment,
30% to 40% will not get better or fully recover with standard antidepressants.

Ketamine Restores Ability to Experience Pleasure in Depressed Patients Within Minutes
There are many faces to depression: sadness, hopelessness, trouble sleeping, lack of motivation,
an inability to experience pleasure.

Depression Treatments Inspired By Club Drug Move Ahead In Tests
Antidepressant drugs that work in hours instead of weeks could be on the market
within three years, researchers say.

New class of antidepressants shows promise
The patient was only in his 20s but had been battling depression all his life.
Sometimes he felt so bad he would stay in bed for weeks. Finally he joined a clinical trial
and took a drug that may turn out to be the biggest breakthrough in depression in decades.
In a matter of hours he felt normal for the first time in his life.

Intravenously Administered Ketamine Shown to Reduce Symptoms of Chronic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
For the first time, evidence that a single dose of IV-administered ketamine was associated with
the rapid reduction of symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in patients with chronic PTSD

Rave drug holds promise for treating depression fast
Ketamine, a psychoactive ‘party drug’ better known as Special K, has pharmaceutical companies
riding high. Used clinically as an anaesthetic in animals and humans, it has proved an extremely
effective treatment for depression, bipolar disorder and suicidal behaviour.

NIMH Director’s Blog on Ketamine for Depression
By now, everyone knows that medication development for mental disorders has hit a wall,
pharmaceutical companies have abandoned the search for new medications, and there are no
promising new medications on the horizon. So it is important to take a moment to consider
ketamine, an anesthetic that has been around for decades.

Ketamine may be quick, effective treatment for untreatable depression
Ketamine, a drug also known as Special K or K, may have some untapped benefits for
people suffering from treatment-resistant depression.

‘Club Drug’ Ketamine Lifts Depression in Hours
The largest study to date confirms that ketamine — a “club drug” that is also legally used as
an anesthetic — could be a quick and effective way to relieve depression.

'I Wanted To Live': New Depression Drugs Offer Hope For Toughest Cases
A club drug called "Special K" is generating a lot of buzz among researchers who study depression.

Ketamine may help treat severe depression, reduce suicidal urges, UAB researchers say
University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) researchers think ketamine, an anesthesia medication
in use since the 1970s, might be a valuable tool in treating severe depression
and reducing suicidal urges...

How An Unlikely Drug Helps Some Children Consumed By Fear
George McCann has been diagnosed with a subtype of bipolar disorder called the "fear of harm"
profile, and finds that a prescribed dose of ketamine every few days alleviates his symptoms.

Ketamine: from drug of abuse to anti-depressant
Ketamine is probably best known as a recreational drug and horse tranquilliser.
However, it also has a number of beneficial medical uses.

Cortical Marker Points to Ketamine’s Antidepressant Effect
If the progress made in 2012 is any indication, the availability of rapid-acting antidepressants
may be only steps away.

Ketamine Encourages Nerve Remodeling
Ketamine, a commonly used drug for sedation and general anesthesia and an abused hallucinogen,
strengthens neuronal connections in the brain that help rats overcome oppressive fear.

Ketamine Relieves Depression By Restoring Brain Connections
Scientists say they have figured out how an experimental drug called ketamine is able to
relieve major depression in hours instead of weeks.

Ketamine-Induced Optimism: New Hope for the Development of Rapid-Acting Antidepressants
the treatment of mood disorders, studies such as the STAR*D and STEP-BD have made us
increasingly aware of the limitations of the effectiveness of our current treatment strategies.

Effects of ketamine on precipitated opiate withdrawal
N-methyl-D-aspartate antagonists were shown to be effective in suppressing the symptoms
of opiate withdrawal.

4th Infantry Division continues ketamine initiative in Afghanistan
For much of Operation Enduring Freedom, casualties in Afghanistan typically received morphine
and fentanyl to help reduce pain suffered from battlefield wounds.
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