Hugely anecdotally, I think ketamine might have fixed my depression for about 6 months with one heavy dose. It was early 2018, I had just gone through a really bad breakup the December previous. Around March, my friends invited me on a ski trip - where I promptly had a bad fall and ended up in the hospital with a dislocated shoulder. The doctors had a hard time getting it back in while I was conscious, so they knocked me out with ketamine (smaller, more rural hospital) to put it back in.<p>In the days and weeks following I felt amazing, with almost all of the post-breakup blues gone and a fantastic outlook on life - I chalked it up to the "near-death" experience, but later found out about the potential anti-depressive properties of the drug and I've wondered ever since.
Ketamine certainly is effective for depression, however that doesn't mean that the psychadelic effects are what does it, or that curing depression requires getting in touch with your feelings, or anything like that. Could just be a coincidence.<p><a href="https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/19/how-antidepressants-work-at-last" rel="nofollow">https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/19/ho...</a>