Ketamine: A Paradigm Shift for Depression Research and Treatment
This review and perspective paper (2019) gives a high-level overview of what we know about ketamine's effects and how it has changed our perspective on (the treatment of) depression.
Authors
- Gerard Sanacora
- John Krystal
- Dennis Charney
Published
Abstract
Ketamine is the first exemplar of a rapid-acting antidepressant with efficacy for treatment-resistant symptoms of mood disorders. Its discovery emerged from a reconceptualization of the biology of depression. Neurobiological insights into ketamine efficacy shed new light on the mechanisms underlying antidepressant efficacy.
Research Summary of 'Ketamine: A Paradigm Shift for Depression Research and Treatment'
Introduction
Abdallah and colleagues frame ketamine as the first clear example of a rapid-acting antidepressant that challenges long-standing assumptions about the biology and treatment of depression. The paper outlines persistent limitations of conventional antidepressants — slow onset, inadequate response rates, frequent relapse, and poor efficacy in some subgroups such as people with bipolar disorder — and links these clinical shortcomings to an overly narrow focus on monoamine signalling. Earlier research had already hinted that downstream, non-monoaminergic processes (for example neurotrophin signalling, transcriptional and epigenetic changes) were important for antidepressant action, but these clues did not lead to fundamentally new treatment mechanisms for decades.
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Study Details
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- APA Citation
Krystal, J. H., Abdallah, C. G., Sanacora, G., Charney, D. S., & Duman, R. S. (2019). Ketamine: A Paradigm Shift for Depression Research and Treatment. Neuron, 101(5), 774-778. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2019.02.005
References (1)
Papers cited by this study that are also in Blossom
Su, T. P., Chen, M. H., Li, C. T. et al. · Neuropsychopharmacology (2017)
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