ReviewEuropean archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience2025
Are "mystical experiences" essential for antidepressant actions of ketamine and the classic psychedelics?
Review in European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT07584070 (Mystical Experiences Without Psychedelics), which is not on this map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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.
Mystical Experiences Without Psychedelics: The Nature of Peak Spiritual Experiences and How Integration Leads to Human Flourishing
Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Is (S)-norketamine an active mediator of esketamine's antidepressant effects?Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Pleiotropic modulation of the gut-brain-lung axis by ketamine and its enantiomers.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- Synaptic Plasticity-Intrinsic Excitability and Antidepressant Discovery.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- Psilocybin and Bipolar Depression: Promise and Prudence.CNS drugs · 2026Review
- Aquahenosis: a non-pharmacological altered state of consciousness induced by floatation-REST in individuals with anxiety and depression.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Psychedelic therapy: a paradigm shift in treating neuropsychiatric disorders.Science China. Life sciences · 2025Article
- Abnormal O-glycan sialylation in the mPFC contributes to depressive-like behaviors in male mice.Science advances · 2025Article
- Ketamine-Occasioned Mystical Experience in Veterans with Treatment-Resistant Depression: A Retrospective Exploratory Analysis.Psychedelic medicine (New Rochelle, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Overview and Specificity of Psilocybin Use in the Treatment of Mental Disorders:Psychedelic medicine (New Rochelle, N.Y.) · 2025Review
- Microglial BDNF modulates arketamine's antidepressant-like effects through cortico-accumbal pathways.Science advances · 2025Article
- Synergistic behavioral and neuroplastic effects of psilocybin-NMDAR modulator administration.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Sleep-administered ketamine/psychedelics: A streamlined strategy to address two challenges in research on ketamine and psychedelics.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2025Article
- Myelin Repair as a Novel Mechanism for Ketamine's Sustained Antidepressant Effects.Current neuropharmacology · 2025Review
- Is there a risk of esketamine misuse in clinical practice?Therapeutic advances in drug safety · 2025Review
- Ketamine attenuates kidney damage and depression-like behaviors in mice with cisplatin-induced acute kidney injury.Translational psychiatry · 2024Article
- Ketamine and its two enantiomers in anesthesiology and psychiatry: A historical review and future directions.Journal of anesthesia and translational medicine · 2024Review
- (International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The growing interest in the rapid and sustained antidepressant effects of the dissociative anesthetic ketamine and classic psychedelics, such as psilocybin, is remarkable. However, both ketamine and psychedelics are known to induce acute mystical experiences; ketamine can cause dissociative symptoms such as out-of-body experience, while psychedelics typically bring about hallucinogenic experiences, like a profound sense of unity with the universe or nature. The role of these mystical experiences in enhancing the antidepressant outcomes for patients with depression is currently an area of ongoing investigation and debate. Clinical studies have shown that the dissociative symptoms following the administration of ketamine or (S)-ketamine (esketamine) are not directly linked to their antidepressant properties. In contrast, the antidepressant potential of (R)-ketamine (arketamine), thought to lack dissociative side effects, has yet to be conclusively proven in large-scale clinical trials. Moreover, although the activation of the serotonin 5-HT
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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.