A magic bullet for depression?

We rarely read about good news in the world of depression. But new studies signal hope on the horizon. Furthermore, a depression trigger — divorce — appears to be taking a downward turn. Although not considered contagious, depression appears to be a family affair.

When one looks at marriage, divorce and infidelity, as well as the birth of a child, it is interesting to see that with both sad events and happy ones depression plays a role. While we know that depression in marriage can signal divorce and infidelity, the exact numbers are elusive.

Since depression is often centered around family disintegration, here is some potentially good news. The divorce rate per 1,000 married women sank to 16.4 in 2009 from 16.9 the year before and a far cry from 22.6 in 1980, according to an analysis of the data from National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.

However, in the world of marriage and childbirth, a new report contained surprising information. It is not just mothers who suffer from post-partum depression, but fathers as well. More than a third of mothers and about a fifth of new fathers will be affected within the first year. The study is slated for November publication in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, indicates that among new parents 7.53 per 100 mothers per year and 2.69 per 100 new fathers will experience depression.

Until recently, depression was considered an adult illness. About 20.9 million American adults, or about 9.5 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year, have a mood disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Now researchers are taking a closer look at teens and even toddlers. Some reports are calling depression in children a serious un-diagnosed illness.

One of the challenges facing the medical profession is with medication, which in addition to therapy can effectively treat many forms of depression. With the promising ketamine studies at Yale, it may be that researchers are onto the magic bullet.

Ketamine traditionally has been used as a general anesthetic for children, but a decade ago researchers at the Connecticut Mental Health Center found that, in lower doses, the drug seemed to give patients relief from depression.

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Ketamine as an antidepressant

Ketamine, known to clubbers as Special K and to law enforcement as the “date rape” drug, hasn’t always gotten favorable press. But Yale University Professor of Psychiatry Ronald Duman hopes to change that. He believes Ketamine is “like a magic drug” and hopes one day Ketamine will be known as a safe and effective treatment for people with depression.


Professor Duman points to research he and his team conducted and reported recently in the journal Science involving brain maps of rats that had been injected with Ketamine. After receiving the injections, the team observed that synaptic nerve connections previously damaged by stress showed signs of regeneration. This regeneration process is called synaptogenesis and it appears Ketamine may have a favorable effect on a pathway that assists in forming these important links between neurons. The mice that didn’t receive injections failed to exhibit signs of synaptogenesis. In addition, they concluded that a certain spot along this pathway is where proteins necessary for the formation of new synapses are produced.
But that wasn’t all. Professor Duman and his team observed a lessening of depression-like behavior in the rats that received the injections.


For a more in-depth understanding of depression try:

Undoing Depression: What Therapy Doesn't Teach You and Medication Can't Give You

Continue reading at: http://www.pharmacyescrow.com/blog/index.php/2010/09/22/ketamine-as-an-antidepressant/

New Findings About The Ketamine Effect And Treating Depression

Research has now revealed the mechanism underlying the anesthetic ketamine's rapid and sustained antidepressant effect: it activates an important signaling pathway in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. The findings provide clues that could lead to faster-acting drugs for depression or potentially even the adoption of current drugs for this use or augmentation of the effects of existing antidepressants. 

 Article at: http://sis.windhover.com/buy/abstract.php?id=2010900191&utm_source=toc&utm_medium=website

Ketamine fastest treatment for deepression yet!

A horse tranquilliser could hold the key to the fastest treatment yet for depression, with benefits seen within 40 minutes. This compares with the weeks, even months, it takes with traditional antidepressants.
Two small studies have found that 70 per cent of patients with manic depression responded positively to the horse drug ketamine, with the effects lasting for at least three days.
A number of clinical trials are under way, investigating the benefits of the drug. Manic depression - also known as bipolar disorder - is a relatively common condition affecting about one in 100 people. It can occur at any age, although it often develops in the 20s.
Men and women can develop the condition; celebrity sufferers include Stephen Fry, Robbie Williams and Carrie Fisher.

Ketamine has a reputation as an illegal party drug but it has also long been used as an anaesthetic. It works in a different way from traditional medicine for treating depression.
The drug targets the activity of the brain chemical glutamate. One of glutamate's jobs is to boost the electrical flow among brain cells.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1311727/How-horse-sedative-ketamine-beat-depression.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz10NCsHeuS

Ketamine and other psychedlics being researched. (Antidepressant)

Doctors at top hospitals and universities in Canada, the U.S. and abroad are experimenting with LSD, MDMA (“ecstasy”) and psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound in “magic mushrooms,” as treatments for, variously, tobacco addiction, cluster headaches, obsessive-compulsive disorder and suicidal thoughts — as well as anxiety and depression in people with end-stage cancer.
Other research is being conducted with the prescription sedative ketamine, known on the street as “Special K.”
Doctors are testing these drugs because effective treatments either don't exist or simply don't work for some patients. “It's basically an unmet need in medicine,” says Dr. Pierre Blier, Canada Research Chair in Psychopharmacology at the University of Ottawa.

He's been conducting pilot studies with ketamine which have so far proven successful with the severely depressed who might otherwise be subjected to electroconvulsive — or shock — treatments.
“A ketamine infusion is so much more benign than using ECT,” he says, adding that a small dose helps most patients, at least for seven to 10 days. Now he's seeking ways to prolong that effect.


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A study from Yale University in the US suggests that ketamine, a drug normally used as an anasthetic, could be reformulated as an anti-depressant that takes effect in hours rather than the usual weeks and months of most available medications.

When treating patients suffering from complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) with a low-dose (subanesthetic) ketamine infusion, it was observed that some patients made a significant recovery from associated depression. This recovery was not formally documented, as the primary concern was the treatment of the patient's pain. It was not possible to quantify to what degree depression recovery was secondary to the patient's recovery from CRPS. Based on this result, it was thought that a low-dose (subanesthetic) infusion of ketamine was worth a trial in patients who were suffering from treatment-resistant depression without other physical or psychiatric illness.


Animal studies have shown that ketamine and other NMDA receptor antagonists have antidepressant effects in different animal models of depression. About a decade ago, Berman et al.[9] described the first double-blind, placebo-controlled (crossover) study, which showed that an intravenous ketamine infusion (0.5 mg/kg) resulted in significant and rapid but short-lived antidepressant effects in seven patients with major depression.

The problem with using ketamine more widely to treat depression has been the fact it has to be given intravenously under medical supervision, and it can also cause short-term psychotic symptoms.