Ketamine is commonly used as an anesthetic, but its use as a treatment for depression is unknown.
A new study suggests that taking ketamine helps people develop more optimistic beliefs after receiving positive information.
Treating depression can be challenging. Some people don’t respond well to common medications or treatments that doctors use to treat depression. Therefore, experts are constantly looking for new ways to help improve treatment options for people with depression.
A new study looks at how ketamine can help people with treatment-resistant depression.
They found that using ketamine helped some participants update their negative beliefs. Renewing these beliefs was strongly associated with a decrease in depressive symptoms.
People with depression may have negative expectations about the future, even when presented with evidence that does not support these negative beliefs. In contrast, non-depressed people tend to update their beliefs when they receive more positive information, a phenomenon known as the optimism bias.
In this study, researchers sought to investigate how ketamine affects negative beliefs in people with depression.
This study included 56 participants, including 30 people in the control group and 26 people with treatment-resistant depression.
Participants with treatment-resistant depression received three injections of ketamine in one week, first after 48 hours and then after 5 days. The researchers tested participants 24 hours before the first injection, and four hours after and four hours after the third injection.
The researchers found that participants with treatment-resistant depression had a greater ability to positively update certain beliefs after ketamine treatment. This change in belief renewal was significantly associated with a decrease in depressive symptoms.
These findings suggest that drug-enhanced (ketamine-enhanced) psychotherapy may be beneficial for treating depression. However, the researchers stress that more research is being done in this area.
Source: Medical News
Source: Young Journalists Club
