Oct 17, 2025 ketamine

Spotlight: Oral ketamine for the treatment of major depressive and bipolar disorder, a randomized controlled trial and meta-analysis (Silberbauer, et al, 2025)

Treatment was well-tolerated, with no serious adverse events reported...in a total of 592 patients, meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials on oral ketamine treatment demonstrated its antidepressant efficacy with a Number Needed to Treat = 4.89 for response and a NNT = 9.16 for remission.

by Michael DeMarco, PhD

(2025): "Ketamine represents a significant advancement in antidepressant therapy, but the commonly used intravenous and intranasal application routes currently limit its availability beyond specialized centers. By contrast, oral ketamine treatment might constitute an alternative that is widely available, easy to administer, and has potential advantages with regard to tolerability."

Spotlight: Intermittent ketamine and neuromodulation treatment evoke synergistic antidepressant-relevant action (Brown, et al, 2025)

"The rapid response that can be observed following ketamine treatment has reconceptualized how pharmacotherapy can treat depression. One subanesthetic infusion can alleviate symptoms within hours; however, sustained relief also requires multiple doses. "

20 Oct

Spotlight: Efficacy and safety of ketamine maintenance therapy in treatment-resistant depression: A systematic review of treatment protocols and clinical outcomes (Al-Garni, et al, 2025)

"Concurrent psychotherapy improved treatment maintenance. Adverse events were generally mild to moderate... Ketamine maintenance therapy shows promise as a treatment option for TRD, with regular dosing schedules and early intervention associated with optimal outcomes."

19 Oct

Spotlight: Ketamine Assisted Therapy Outcomes for First-Responders with Comorbid Mental Health Diagnoses (Tsang, et al, 2025)

"KAT may provide meaningful benefits beyond symptom reduction."

18 Oct

Spotlight: Antidepressants and the endogenous opioid system (Fricker, et al, 2025)

"A growing body of evidence links the opioid system w/ major depressive disorder... two different widely used antidepressants, tianeptine & ketamine, both interact with MOR; tianeptine as a full agonist, ketamine as a positive allosteric modulator. Both produce antidepressant effects within days."

11 Oct

Spotlight: Real-world clinical data on the long-term effectiveness and safety of generic racemic ketamine treatment (Massaneda-Tuneu, et al, 2025)

"Findings suggested that racemic ketamine (including by mouth), when appropriately dosed and administered within a structured clinical and safety monitoring framework, is both effective, safe and well-tolerated over a 6-month treatment period."

10 Oct

Spotlight: Synaptic priming: A framework for pharmacotherapy in depression (Brown, et al, 2025)

"we describe how the indirect relationship between ketamine's pharmacokinetics and sustained antidepressant pharmacodynamics reveals a dosing model (primer pharmacology) that can be harnessed to fine-tune therapeutic outcomes."