Ketamine Helps Patients With Treatment-Resistant Depression Update Their Beliefs, New Study Finds
Major depression is one of the most common mental illnesses in the United States, affecting over eight percent of adults– or twenty-one million– each year.
Despite depression being a highly treatable mental illness via medication, therapy, and lifestyle changes, though, about one-third of people diagnosed have what is known as treatment-resistant depression (TRD).
With TRD, medication may only partly relieve negative symptoms or result in no relief at all. So, scientists around the globe have been researching alternative therapies– one of which is ketamine.
Ketamine was first approved for antidepressant use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2019. Later, the drug was also approved for treating suicidal ideation and behavior in adults.
And since then, ketamine has been shown to greatly impact TRD symptoms. Plus, unlike traditional antidepressants, which require about three weeks to become effective, ketamine is fast-acting– and its effects can be felt in as little as a few hours.
Despite the major triumph in treating TRD, though, the exact mechanisms associated with ketamine’s rapid antidepressant effect have remained unknown– until now.
The Paris Brain Institute recently conducted a clinical study consisting of twenty-six patients with TRD and thirty healthy control patients.
First, each group estimated the probability of forty generally “negative” events that could occur in their lifetimes– for example, getting into a car accident or falling ill.
Then, the researchers informed both TDR patients and healthy control subjects of the actual risk figure among the general population. And after receiving this information, both groups were asked to estimate their personal probability again.
contrastwerkstatt – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purpose only, not the actual person
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
Afterward, the team found that healthy subjects were more likely to update their initial estimates– or beliefs– after receiving factual and positive information. However, the TDR population did not do the same.
So, the researchers moved on to their next segment of the study– ketamine administration. Each TDR patient received three subanesthetic doses of ketamine in one week. Then, the same probability exercise was repeated.
Just four hours after the first dose of ketamine, though, TDR patients showed a significantly greater ability to update their beliefs after being presented with positive information. The TDR patients also exhibited less sensitivity to negative information.
In turn, the researchers have linked the decrease in depressive symptoms in ketamine-treated TDR patients to these changes in belief updating.
“In other words, the more patients’ belief updating ability was increased, the greater improvement in symptoms was,” the researchers added.
This groundbreaking study is the first to identify a potential cognitive mechanism at play during the early onset of ketamine treatment. And now, this finding will pave the way for further research about the intersection of antidepressant therapies and belief updating.
To read the study’s complete findings, which have since been published in JAMA Psychiatry, visit the link here.
If true crime defines your free time, this is for you: join Chip Chick’s True Crime Tribe
Her Sister Stole Her Deceased Baby’s Name, And So She Went To Her House To Confront Her About It
More About:Science
Read This Next
