ketamine
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."
ketamine
Spotlight: Changing your mind: neuroplastic mechanisms underlying the therapeutic effect of psychedelics in depression, PTSD, and addiction (Palhas, et al, 2025)
"Serotonergic psychedelics & ketamine appear to share common cellular mechanisms. They both recruit glutamatergic neurons to stimulate BDNF-trKB signaling, promoting synaptogenesis via the mTOR pathway. These changes may explain their efficacy in depression, anxiety, PTSD, & addiction."
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.
opiod system
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."
at home ketamine
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."
ketamine
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."
iv ketamine
Spotlight: Efficacy of Intravenous Racemic Ketamine on Global Severity and Individual Symptoms of Depression: An Exploratory Retrospective Analysis (Landrum, et al, 2025)
" Maintenance intravenous racemic ketamine therapy demonstrated significant, persistent, and broad efficacy for treatment-resistant depression ...Side effect burden was no greater in higher doses as compared with lower. "
iv ketamine
Spotlight: First study to compare two ketamine therapies for patients with severe depression
IV ketamine found to offer faster response with greater improvements than FDA-approved intranasal esketamine (Spravato)
ketamine
Spotlight: Comparative Effects of Repeated Ketamine Infusion Versus Intranasal Esketamine in Patients With Treatment-Resistant Depression: A Retrospective Chart Review (Meisner, et al, 2025)
"In this naturalistic sample of patients with similarly severe TRD treated in a ketamine subspecialty service over a 4–5-week induction period, treatment with IV racemic ketamine was associated with a more rapid response and greater overall efficacy than treatment with IN esketamine."
ketamine
Ketamine/esketamine in the treatment of depression with comorbid borderline personality disorder or traits: A systematic review of effectiveness (Scott, et al, 2025)
"patients with depression and comorbid borderline personality disorder/traits were equally likely to respond to ketamine/esketamine as those with depression but without borderline personality disorder/traits."
ketamine
Exploring the Therapeutic Potential of Ketamine and Psilocybin in Comparison to Current Treatment Regimens for Treatment-Resistant Depression, Mood Disorders, and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in the Pediatric Population (Hughes, et al, 2025)
"Ketamine's use for pediatric TRD demonstrated rapid-onset relief for signs and symptoms of depression in children and adolescents, and psilocybin also decreased symptoms in patients with longstanding or refractory depression. Ketamine has been well tolerated and exhibited symptom improvements"
ketamine
Ketamine Reduces Suicidality-Associated Emergency Department Utilization in Patients With Treatment-Resistant Depression: A 6-Month Mirror-Image Study (Patarroyo-Rodriguez, et al, 2025)
La ketamina reduce la utilización del departamento de emergencias asociada a la suicidabilidad en pacientes con depresión resistente al tratamiento: un estudio de imagen especular de 6 meses
antidepressants
Spotlight: Large responses to antidepressants or methodological artifacts? A secondary analysis of STAR∗D, a single-arm, open-label, nonindustry antidepressant trial (Xu, et al, 2025)
"...our results do not support the notion that a subgroup of patients with a large response exists. Instead, these findings support the assumption that the putative subgroups from industry randomized controlled trials may be artifacts caused by methodological biases."
psilocybin
Spotlight: Depression remission endures 5 years after psilocybin trial consisting of psilocybin with psychotherapy (2025)
"when it comes to reducing depression with psychedelic-assisted therapy, what matters even more than the drug is a strong relationship between the therapist and study participant."
