For those with stubbornly resistant forms of severe depression, ketamine was looking more and more like a solution. Years of research has hinted at the dissociative anesthetic’s treatment potential where other medications failed, promising the benefits of electroshock therapy with far fewer risks.
For all of the excitement, separating the hope from the hype has been challenged by the drug’s strong psychoactive effects. How can you conduct a blind test for a drug that so overtly detaches the mind from the body?
By taking advantage of the unconscious state of patients under general anesthesia, researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine in the US put ketamine to the ultimate, gold standard test.
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