for bipolar disorder. LSD for depression. It's been a busy month for psychedelic drugs in the laboratory, as several studies showed that these drugs typically used recreationally—and illegally—affect the brain in ways that could make them useful for treating mental illness. First came a small study in the
Ketamine
Archives of General Psychiatry that we covered earlier this month, in which scientists tested 18 patients who on average had tried seven kinds of drugs to treat their bipolar disorder. When the researchers gave them small doses of ketamine—a powerful
anesthetic that people use recreationally for the hallucinogenic side effects—the patients' depressive symptoms lessened within a matter of minutes.
Compared to placebo, patients showed significant improvement in mood within 40 minutes of receiving the ketamine infusion, using a common depression rating scale. Symptom improvement peaked two days after the injection, but remained significantly greater than for placebo for three days. Seventy-one ...
