Ketamine could soon be approved to treat depression

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published 18 August 2016

Psychiatrists looking for a new treatment to give patients with major depression and suicidal tendencies may soon be able to administer ketamine inside of their offices.

If ketamine is approved by the Federal Drug Administration as a breakthrough therapy, it will be the first new treatment for a major depressive disorder in about 50 years, CNN reports. On Tuesday, Janssen Pharmaceutical announced it is working on two clinical trials with ketamine — one for treatment-resistant depression and one for depression with suicidal thoughts, and will present the data to the FDA in 2018. Ketamine is also known as the street drug Special K, which gives users the feeling of being out of their body. It was used in the 1960s as an analgesic and sedative and is still on the World Health Organization's Essential Medicine List, but because of its hallucinogenic side effects, it's mostly used today as a veterinary anesthetic.

Depression causes damage to nerves and their transmission pathways, and research leads scientists to believe ketamine remodels those nerves, triggering neuroplastic processes that make new connections among brain cells, Dr. Dan Iosifescu of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City told CNN. "What's unique about ketamine is, this happens in hours or days, while with other depression medications, this happens in weeks to months," he said. Doctors have some concern that using ketamine for depression could reverse a person's tolerance to opioids or lead to substance abuse, and Janssen said its formulation would only be administered by a doctor in their office.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.