ReviewNeurobiology of stress2018
On the safety of repeated ketamine infusions for the treatment of depression: Effects of sex and developmental periods.
Review in Neurobiology of stress, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 58 citations in OpenAlex.
- Is the antidepressant efficacy of ketamine and esketamine mediated via opioid mechanisms?European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2026Pooled it
- Long-Term Efficacy of Intranasal Esketamine in Treatment-Resistant Major Depression: A Systematic Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Pooled it
- Understanding experiences of psychedelic treatments for eating disorders: a meta-synthesis of qualitative studies.BMC medicine · 2026Review
- Sustained abstinence in severe ketamine use disorder following ibogaine treatment case report.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- The Effects of Psychotherapy on Single and Repeated Ketamine Infusion(s) Therapy for Treatment-Resistant Depression: The Convergence of Molecular and Psychological Treatment.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Chronic, combinatorial targeting of NMDARs and 5-HTNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Effects of Ketamine vs. Midazolam in Adolescent Treatment Resistant Depression.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Ketamine Prevents Inflammation-Induced Reduction of Human Hippocampal Neurogenesis via Inhibiting the Production of Neurotoxic Metabolites of the Kynurenine Pathway.The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology · 2024Article
- Ketamine's rapid and sustained antidepressant effects are driven by distinct mechanisms.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2024Article
- Article
- Exploring pharmacological options for adolescent depression: a preclinical evaluation with a sex perspective.Translational psychiatry · 2022Article
- Ketamine activates adult-born immature granule neurons to rapidly alleviate depression-like behaviors in mice.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Depression in Adolescence and Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2022Review
- (R,S)-ketamine and (2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine differentially affect memory as a function of dosing frequency.Translational psychiatry · 2021Article
- Unraveling the opioid actions of S-ketamine and R-ketamine: comment on Bonaventura et al.Molecular psychiatry · 2021Article
- Use and abuse of dissociative and psychedelic drugs in adolescence.Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior · 2021Review
- Repurposing Ketamine in Depression and Related Disorders: Can This Enigmatic Drug Achieve Success?Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Review
- The Ketamine Antidepressant Story: New Insights.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
- Next-Step Treatment Considerations for Patients With Treatment-Resistant Depression That Responds to Low-Dose Intravenous Ketamine.Focus (American Psychiatric Publishing) · 2020Article
- Ketamine as an antidepressant: overview of its mechanisms of action and potential predictive biomarkers.Therapeutic advances in psychopharmacology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
In this review, we will discuss the safety of repeated treatments with ketamine for patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD), a condition in which patients with major depression do not show any clinical improvements following treatments with at least two antidepressant drugs. We will discuss the effects of these treatments in both sexes at different developmental periods. Numerous small clinical studies have shown that a single, low-dose ketamine infusion can rapidly alleviate depressive symptoms and thoughts of suicidality in patients with TRD, and these effects can last for about one week. Interestingly, the antidepressant effects of ketamine can be prolonged with intermittent, repeated infusion regimens and produce more robust therapeutic effects when compared to a single infusion. The safety of such repeated treatments with ketamine has not been thoroughly investigated. Although more studies are needed, some clinical and preclinical reports indicated that repeated infusions of low doses of ketamine may have addictive properties, and suggested that adolescent and adult female subjects may be more sensitive to ketamine's addictive effects. Additionally, during ketamine infusions, many TRD patients report hallucinations and feelings of dissociation and depersonalization, and therefore the effects of repeated treatments of ketamine on cognition must be further examined. Some clinical reports indicated that, compared to women, men are more sensitive to the psychomimetic effects of ketamine. Preclinical studies extended these findings to both adolescent and adult male rodents and showed that male rodents at both developmental periods are more sensitive to ketamine's cognitive-altering effects. Accordingly, in this review we shall focus our discussion on the potential addictive and cognitive-impairing effects of repeated ketamine infusions in both sexes at two important developmental periods: adolescence and adulthood. Although more work about the safety of ketamine is warranted, we hope this review will bring some answers about the safety of treating TRD with repeated ketamine infusions.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.