TL;DR: A 2026 Phase 2 trial in The British Journal of Psychiatry found that 10 mg emestedastat did not improve attention and working memory after six weeks in adults with major depressive disorder and objectively measured cognitive impairment. A nominal depression-score difference appeared four weeks after treatment ended, but it was secondary, unadjusted for multiple …
TL;DR: A 2026 cross-sectional study in PLOS One found that euthymic bipolar disorder patients with early systematic antidepressant treatment had higher negative affect and higher attentional, non-planning, and total impulsivity scores than matched patients without that early antidepressant history. Key Findings 124 bipolar patients studied: Researchers compared 62 patients with early systematic antidepressant treatment and …
Esketamine Lost the Cost-Effectiveness Race in Hong Kong TL;DR: A 5-year Hong Kong model found esketamine plus an antidepressant bought only a small quality-adjusted survival gain at US$29,061 per patient, leaving it behind cheaper third-line options like combination therapy. Key Findings Seven third-line strategies modeled: A Markov cohort model followed adults with treatment-resistant depression in …
TL;DR: A 2026 randomized trial in The British Journal of Psychiatry found 6 ketamine infusions improved severe treatment-resistant depression, but curated music added no measurable benefit; higher mystical-experience scores still predicted the next session’s depression outcome. Key Findings MADRS fell 11.8 points by week 4: Scores dropped from 31.5 to 19.7 (d = 1.2, p …
Ketamine Restored Reward Bias Across Species TL;DR: Ketamine restored reward-learning bias in both treatment-resistant depression and chronically stressed rats while leaving basic discrimination unchanged. Key Findings Reward bias increased: Ketamine significantly increased response bias toward the more frequently rewarded stimulus in both species. Healthy-control levels returned: The reward-bias effect reached levels comparable with healthy controls …
When Depression Threatens Pregnancy: A 34% Elevated Miscarriage Risk TL;DR: Untreated depression increases miscarriage risk by 34% across nearly 9 million women, but antidepressants reduce that risk to 24%—meaning the medication is safer than the disease during pregnancy. For decades, obstetricians have asked the wrong question about depression in pregnancy. They worried: Is the antidepressant …
How Ketamine Rewires Receptors to Beat Depression TL;DR: Using PET imaging to directly visualize AMPA receptors in the living human brain, researchers discovered that ketamine’s rapid antidepressant effect works by reshuffling these receptors across specific brain regions in patients with treatment-resistant depression — and where they go predicts who will respond to the drug. Nearly …
How Scientists Turned a Brief Ketamine High into a Two-Month Antidepressant Effect TL;DR: Blocking DUSP6 protein alongside ketamine extends antidepressant effects from 2 weeks to 4+ weeks in mice, potentially offering single-dose treatment instead of repeated infusions. Ketamine works like almost nothing else in psychiatry. A single infusion can lift severe depression within hours, even …
Fluorinated Psilocin: The Sub-Hallucinogenic Breakthrough TL;DR: Chemists designed a new psilocin derivative with fluorine modifications that induces sub-hallucinogenic effects in mice, sidestepping the acute psychological effects of classic psychedelics while retaining therapeutic serotonin receptor activity. Psilocybin has emerged as a clinical darling—mounting evidence shows rapid relief for depression, anxiety, and cluster headaches. But there’s a …
Opioid System Activation is Required for Ketamine’s Antidepressant Effects Ketamine is fast—a single subanesthetic infusion reduces severe depression symptoms within hours, not weeks. But the mechanism remains incompletely understood. For nearly two decades, research assumed glutamate flooding the brain explained everything: ketamine blocks NMDA receptors on inhibitory neurons, releasing the brakes on glutamate release, which …
