"The team had given ketamine, a mind-altering drug that is normally used to anesthetize patients during surgery, to ten people with depression. All but one reported a marked improvement in their symptoms after one dose. Curiously, the antidepressant effect emerged after the mind-altering experiences and persisted for more than a week, suggesting that ketamine might be doing more than making the patients trip."
"A chemical neuroscientist named David Olson, then a graduate student at Stanford, told me that he encountered these studies and was 'struck by the ability of a substance, with a single dose, to have such long-lasting effects.' He wanted to know how the drugs worked. He followed closely as researchers began investigating the effects of mind-altering substances on depression, anxiety, substance-use disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other conditions."
Research beginning in 2000 demonstrated that psychedelics like ketamine and psilocybin produce rapid and lasting improvements in depression and other mental health conditions. A single dose of ketamine improved symptoms in nearly all depressed patients tested, with effects persisting beyond the initial experience. Psilocybin participants reported profound psychological benefits weeks after administration. These findings prompted investigation into how psychedelics work therapeutically and whether they could be safely prescribed clinically. Researchers, including neuroscientist David Olson, became interested in understanding the mechanisms behind these long-lasting effects and whether the mind-altering properties are necessary for therapeutic benefits.
Read at The New Yorker
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]