Drug could be depression buster
By Bruce Bower
Preliminary evidence indicates that a single dose of a drug called ketamine rapidly quells symptoms of major depression for up to 1 week in patients who don’t benefit from standard antidepressant medications. Ketamine lowers brain concentrations of glutamate, a chemical messenger that has been implicated in depression.
A team led by psychiatrist Carlos A. Zarate Jr. of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., studied 17 adults, ages 19 to 60, whose feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and other symptoms of major depression had not responded to at least two standard antidepressants.