Ketamine and rapidly acting antidepressants: Breaking the speed of sound or light?

M Berk; C Loo; CG Davey; BH Harvey

Journal article

Ketamine and rapidly acting antidepressants: Breaking the speed of sound or light?

M Berk, C Loo, CG Davey, BH Harvey

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry | SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD | Published : 2018

DOI: 10.1177/0004867418783567

Abstract

There is an urgent need for rapidly acting antidepressants. Current therapies share a delayed onset of action, contrasting with drugs of abuse that have rapid psychotropic effects but cause tolerance and dependence. A key uncertainty is whether there is a finite speed limit imposed by the critical role of homeostatic adaptive mechanisms that underpin the efficacy and onset of available psychotropic agents and whether this is mutable with emerging agents with potential rapid onset, in particular ketamine.

University of Melbourne Researchers

Michael Berk Author

Chris Davey Author

Related Projects (1)

A RANDOMISED CONTROLLED TRIAL OF LOW-DOSE KETAMINE IN YOUTH WITH SEVERE DEPRESSION AND ELEVATED SUICIDE RISK

Recent research has shown that a single injection of low-dose ketamine has powerful, though short-lived, antidepressant effects. Effective t..

Grants

Awarded by National Health and Medical Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

M.B. is supported by an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellowship (1059660). C.L. has received funding from the NHMRC (1105089) for ketamine research. B.H.H. is supported by the South African Medical Research Council (MRC) and the National Research Foundation (NRF; IFR170207222124). C.G.D. is supported by an NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (1141738) and has received funding from the NHMRC for ketamine research (1138736).