Ketamine for Depression

A new brain-imaging study has revealed how ketamine produces its fast antidepressant effects in people with treatment-resistant depression.

Researchers tracked changes in a critical brain receptor that helps neurons communicate and found that ketamine reshapes its activity in specific brain regions tied to mood and reward.

These shifts strongly matched improvements in patients’ symptoms. The findings could help scientists develop better ways to predict who will benefit from ketamine therapy.

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Ketamine for Pain?

In response to the opioid crisis, researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) are looking for alternate ways to reduce pain after orthopedic procedures.

In an innovative pilot study that was recently completed, investigators led by Michael P. Ast, MD, hip and knee surgeon and Chief Medical Innovation Officer at HSS, showed that a combination of oral ketamine and aspirin was safe and had few adverse effects in people undergoing total knee replacement surgery.

Based on these findings, the team is planning a much larger, randomized clinical trial to compare it to standard opioid treatment.

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