Spotlight: Jeffrey Becker - The Neurobiology Underlying Transcendence Induced by Ketamine and the Psychedelics (2026)
While psychedelics selectively amplify activity in specific neural circuits, ketamine acts on a receptor found widely throughout the brain. This raises a key question: how can a drug targeting such a common receptor produce such distinct and powerful subjective effects?
Spotlight: N,N-dimethyltryptamine elicits antidepressant and anxiolytic effects in helpless mice: a comparative study with S-ketamine (da Sousa-Silva, et al, 2026)
DMT compared with ketamine variant, esketamine in mice.
Moderating factors in psilocybin-assisted treatment affecting mood and personality: A naturalistic, open-label investigation (Irrmischer, et al, 2025)
"Findings indicate that individual psilocybin-assisted therapy has the potential for beneficial effects on mood and personality characteristics. Moreover, the study highlights the importance of subjective experiences and demographic factors in moderating this effect."
Psychedelic Experiences After Bereavement Improve Symptoms of Grief: The Influence of Emotional Breakthroughs and Challenging Experiences (Low, et al, 2025)
"Findings provide preliminary evidence that support the development of a psychedelic-assisted therapy protocol to target symptoms of grief. Psychedelic-assisted therapy might offer an alternative to current grief treatment options. "
Intravenous ketamine versus esketamine for depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis (Elmosalamy, et al, 2025)
"Based on the currently available comparative evidence, which is almost entirely observational, IV ketamine and IN esketamine show comparable acute response and remission rates, though IV ketamine may act faster."
The Role of Psychedelics in the Treatment of Substance Use Disorders: An Overview of Systematic Reviews (Correa de Costa, et al, 2025)
"...evidence suggests that the use of serotonergic and non-serotonergic psychedelics (ketamine) for the treatment of SUD may provide advantages over traditional therapeutics, and these compounds may eventually become part of the next generation of treatments for SUD under specific circumstances."
