The Washington Post:
After a lifetime of profound depression, 25 years of therapy and cycling through 18 antidepressants and mood stabilizers, Hartman, then 46, had settled on a date and a plan to end it all. The clinical trial would be his last attempt at salvation. For 40 minutes, he sat in a hospital room as an IV drip delivered ketamine through his system. Several more hours passed before it occurred to him that all his thoughts of suicide had evaporated.

Nautilus:
Ketamine's remarkable effect bolsters a new theory of mental illness. Depression is the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting 30 percent of Americans at some point in their lives.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is highly prevalent in the United States military forces, with rates as high as 31% and 20% for Vietnam War and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) veterans, respectively. An estimated 50% of patients diagnosed with PTSD also present with chronic pain.

Low-dose ketamine infusions are both safe and significantly effective for patients with chronic pain, according to one of the largest real-world studies of its kind published today in Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine.

Led by researchers at Cleveland Clinic’s Neurological and Primary Care Institutes, the study analyzed data from over 1,000 patients, providing crucial evidence for this emerging treatment approach.

New research addresses a gap in understanding how ketamine’s impact on individual neurons leads to pervasive and profound changes in brain network function.

Repeated intravenous (IV) ketamine infusions significantly reduce symptom severity in individuals with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the improvement is rapid and maintained for several weeks afterwards, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.