‘Instead of committing suicide, people go to work.’ –Thomas Bernhard
Ketamine, a chemical used as an anaesthetic for horses and as an illegal party drug, can produce “remarkable changes” in severely depressed patients who are not helped by existing treatments, according to a new study.
Oxford university researchers reported encouraging results from a clinical trial in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. Some patients who had been severely depressed for years, despite multiple antidepressants and talking therapies, responded rapidly to intravenous infusions of ketamine.
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The Oxford team has given more than 400 ketamine infusions to 45 patients and is now looking for ways to sustain the initial benefits, which faded in most of the patients.
Although ketamine is a banned substance – and about to be upgraded by the Home Office from Class C to Class B – the Oxford patients did not show the ill effects, such as bladder problems and memory loss, which make it a dangerous drug of abuse.
The doses used to treat depression are much lower than some people take illegally. Even so, most patients experienced a shortlived “dissociative” effect, with feelings that they were disconnecting from their body, as the drug was being infused. It did not produce euphoric feelings.
