It is, in principle, an anesthetic, but for about twenty years psychiatrists have considered it a possible solution against depression.
Could ketamine, a molecule with a controversial reputation, help some patients with depression?
Some research confirms this, but experts remain cautious about the challenge of side effects.
Positive research accumulates, especially when no other treatment works.
We urgently need new treatments for severe depression and ketamine is promising,” Australian researcher Julaine Allan, who specializes in mental health, summarizes to AFP.
Ketamine is not a classic antidepressant like those developed since the 1960s.
It is, in principle, an anesthetic, but for about twenty years psychiatrists have considered it a possible solution against depression.
Unlike common antidepressants, ketamine acts quickly, although it is unknown exactly what physiological mechanisms it triggers to relieve depressive symptoms.
Therefore, it seems promising in two main cases: when specific and urgent treatment is needed, mainly in the face of suicidal crises, although not only in those cases.
And when no classic medication works, that is, in cases of so-called resistant depression.
In recent months, several studies published in prestigious journals have confirmed the interest of ketamine in these two cases.
A study published in April in the British Medical Journal https://www.bmj.com/ shows how the risk of postpartum depression in young mothers was reduced after receiving a single dose of esketamine, a ketamine derivative, at their birth. baby.
In the second case, a study published this Monday in Nature Medicine shows that treatment with ketamine prevented more depressive relapses compared to patients receiving placebo treatment.
Esketamine has been approved for several years by psychiatrists in the United States and Europe to treat certain depressions.
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