ReviewNature reviews. Neuroscience2025
Structural neural plasticity evoked by rapid-acting antidepressant interventions.
Review in Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 41 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
41 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Efficacy and influencing factors of acupuncture in major depressive disorder: a systematic review and exploratory network meta-analysis.CNS spectrums · 2026Pooled it
- The improvement effects and mechanisms of virtual reality training on depression: a systematic review from a neurotransmitter-plasticity dual-pathway perspective.Journal of global health · 2026Pooled it
- Ketamine's impact on rumination-related brain dynamics: insights from a randomized controlled fMRI trial.Translational psychiatry · 2026Trial
- Neurostimulation in the treatment of psychiatric disorders: Underlying mechanisms and critical analysis of circuit-based interventions.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- The mPFC-reuniens-hippocampus pathway links brain circuitry and neural plasticity in antidepressant response.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Towards precision psychiatry: initial foundations and future directions.Nature reviews. Drug discovery · 2026Review
- AiScience · 2026Article
- Prefrontal-raphe-habenular circuit drives fear memory recall and updating.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Psychedelic drug action at dendrites is gated by behavioral state and serotonin receptors.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Dissociating the Hallucinogenic and Neuroplastic Effects of Psilocybin.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Enhancing plasticity to treat depression and other central nervous system diseases using event-driven pharmacology.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2026Review
- Converging on control: Rethinking treatment-resistant depression through network neuroscience.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2026Article
- Intermittent Ketamine and Neuromodulation Treatment Evoke Synergistic Antidepressant-Relevant Action.Biological psychiatry · 2026Article
- Synaptic Plasticity-Intrinsic Excitability and Antidepressant Discovery.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- USP11 drives stress-induced synaptic structural deficits and depression-like behaviors through GSK3β/mTOR signaling.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Article
- Subanesthetic doses of ketamine to rats and monkeys rapidly increases radioligand binding in brain to phosphodiesterase-4, an indirect marker of cAMP.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Synaptic density in the hippocampus of depressed patients: A quantitative electron microscopic study.Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry · 2026Article
- The psychedelic phenethylamine 25C-NBF, a selective 5-HT2A agonist, shows psychoplastogenic properties and rapid antidepressant effects in male rodents.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
A feature in the pathophysiology of major depressive disorder (MDD), a mood disorder, is the impairment of excitatory synapses in the prefrontal cortex. Intriguingly, different types of treatment with fairly rapid antidepressant effects (within days or a few weeks), such as ketamine, electroconvulsive therapy and non-invasive neurostimulation, seem to converge on enhancement of neural plasticity. However, the forms and mechanisms of plasticity that link antidepressant interventions to the restoration of excitatory synaptic function are still unknown. In this Review, we highlight preclinical research from the past 15 years showing that ketamine and psychedelic drugs can trigger the growth of dendritic spines in cortical pyramidal neurons. We compare the longitudinal effects of various psychoactive drugs on neuronal rewiring, and we highlight rapid onset and sustained time course as notable characteristics for putative rapid-acting antidepressant drugs. Furthermore, we consider gaps in the current understanding of drug-evoked in vivo structural plasticity. We also discuss the prospects of using synaptic remodelling to understand other antidepressant interventions, such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation. Finally, we conclude that structural neural plasticity can provide unique insights into the neurobiological actions of psychoactive drugs and antidepressant interventions.
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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.