Katharina Buczek
Finally, while ketamine infusions have been shown to offer symptom relief in as little as two hours post-treatment, the effects do wear off within the following weeks.
This pushes patients back to seeking out the costly therapy– and perhaps even longer waitlists.
So, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh recently conducted a double-blind, randomized clinical trial in hopes of broadening ketamine’s potential by pairing the drug treatment with a computer-based digital therapy.
“Our goal is to leverage digital technologies and develop a strategy that will efficiently extend the time between appointments, save patients money and get more patients effective depression care,” explained Rebecca Price, an associate professor at Pitt’s School of Medicine.
In turn, the team devised a strategy that would pair a ketamine injection with a computer-based training session.
The training used uplifting words, such as “sweet” and “worthy,” along with positive imagery. Then, the patient’s photo was displayed alongside images of other people smiling.
Finally, the researchers tested this strategy within a clinical trial of over one hundred and fifty adults. After each patient received a single ketamine infusion, the patients were then split into three groups.
One group completed eight twenty-minute training sessions over the following four days. The second group completed a non-therapeutic version of the training. Finally, a third group received a saline infusion before completing the therapeutic training.
And the researchers found that over the following month, the people who received ketamine and therapeutic computer-based training reported fewer symptoms of depression than the other two groups.
This suggests that pairing neurocognitive training with ketamine infusions will extend the drug’s antidepressant effects– which could potentially extend the time between appointments and limit out-of-pocket costs.
In fact, the researchers were so blown away by the results of this straightforward treatment pairing that Pitt’s Innovation Institute has since filed a provisional patent.
