Research on plant-based treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder has surged since 2015, with nearly half of all relevant articles coming from North America. A cluster co-occurrence network analysis of 301 articles from the Web of Science database (2007–2022) shows the field is dominated by neuroscience and neurology, and most studies focus on psychedelic interventions. Three timelines reveal an "ebb and flow" between research on substance use/marijuana abuse and psychedelic medicine/medicinal cannabis. Other phytochemicals account for a small proportion of studies, examining neurosteroid turnover, serotonin levels, and brain-derived neurotrophic factor expression. The research is unevenly distributed across countries, disciplines, and journals.
Esketamine treatment alleviated sepsis symptoms, cognitive impairment, and decreased mortality in a mouse model of sepsis-associated encephalopathy. It reduced neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, and neuronal loss, and normalized calcium transients while improving dendritic structure and synaptic plasticity in the hippocampal CA1 region. These effects depended on the NF-α1/CREB signaling pathway, as suppressing NF-α1 abolished the protective effects and reversed improvements in calcium transients, dendrites, and post-synaptic plasticity. The findings suggest esketamine protects against hippocampal injury in sepsis through this pathway.