ketamine
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."
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."
salience network
Spotlight: Modulation of functional network co-activation pattern dynamics following ketamine treatment in major depression (Taraku, et al, 2025)
"findings suggest ketamine modulates brain network dynamics which may normalize dynamic patterns seen in TRD at baseline toward patterns seen in controls. Changes in Salience Network state dynamics may correspond to improvements in ruminative symptoms following ketamine therapy."
lsd
Spotlight: LSD: Mechanisms and relevance to the treatment of depression (Bouloufa, et al, 2025)
"Psychedelics may be a potential alternative therapy for treatment-resistant depression. LSD has a complex mode of action which is not yet fully understood.
Low doses of LSD can drastically increase brain plasticity."
ayahausca
Spotlight: Resilience and Brain Changes in Long-Term Ayahuasca Users: Insights From Psychometric and fMRI Pattern Recognition (Ramos, et al, 2025)
"results suggest that long-term Ayahuasca use may be linked to lasting changes in emotional regulation and brain function, potentially supporting psychological well-being."
ketamine
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."
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."
ketamine
Naltrexone in the Treatment of Ketamine Use Disorders: A Case Report and Literature Review (Verma, et al, 2025)
"findings consistent w/ 2 prior reports - use of naltrexone in KUDs at the dosage of 50 mg/day successfully helped patients achieve abstinence... naltrexone reduces antidepressant effects of ketamine, indicating overlap between opioid system & ketamine's NMDA receptor activity. "
psilocybin research
Spotlight: Psilocybin during the postpartum period induces long-lasting adverse effects in both mothers and offspring (in mice)
"we show that both parous parents and their children may be uniquely vulnerable to psychedelic treatment during the postpartum period"
psychedelic research
Spotlight: The Role of Psychedelics in Contemporary Psychological and Interdisciplinary Inquiry (Soylemez, et al, 2025)
"These compounds have been shown to enable access to unconscious cognitive and emotional content, facilitate emotional release, and induce a temporary dissolution of ego boundaries—processes that may underpin significant and enduring 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. "
psychedelic cognitive behavioral therapy
Spotlight: Key competencies for psychedelic treatment in real-world mental health care settings (Wolff, et al, 2025)
"To accommodate mainstream adoption of these treatments, the competencies framework we present respects the distinctive contextual and cultural sensitivities of psychedelic care while remaining anchored in established psychotherapeutic, medical, and scientific paradigms."
mdma
Spotlight: Charting a New Frontier: Integrating Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Approaches with 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)
"Psychedelics are being integrated with established cognitive behavioral therapies (CBTs).MDMA is a focus of recent research of psychedelic-assisted cognitive behavioral therapy.Six papers explore interesting and important questions on how to leverage the potential of psychedelics to augment CBTs."
ketamine
Spotlight: Ketamine's Role in Neuroinflammation and Neuroprotection Across Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders: A Narrative Review (Silva, et al, 2025)
"Our findings indicate that ketamine reduces excitotoxicity and inflammation, which may contribute to neuroprotection in acute neurological injuries. These insights underscore ketamine's potential as an adjunctive neuroprotective agent, warranting further clinical investigation...
dmt
Spotlight: N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) mitigates experimental stroke by stabilizing the blood-brain barrier and reducing neuroinflammation (László, et al, 2025)
"Our findings prove that DMT mitigates a poststroke effect by stabilizing the BBB and reducing neuroinflammation. Such interactions of DMT with the vascular and immune systems can be leveraged to complement current, insufficient, stroke therapy."
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)
