Effects of repeated intravenous esketamine administration on affective biases.
The world journal of biological psychiatry : the official journal of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry January 1, 2025 Christine Reif-Leonhard, Shannon N Millard, Dorsa Ferdowssian et al. 3 citations
Repeated intravenous esketamine infusions improved emotion recognition for all emotions except sadness, where accuracy decreased, particularly for low-intensity expressions. Misclassifications of other emotions as sad also decreased, indicating a reduced response bias towards sadness. This shift emerged after the first infusion and consolidated over time. Participants showed significant reductions in feelings of sadness and irritability, and cognitive functioning improved. Among those receiving at least five infusions, 66.7% showed significant improvement. The findings suggest that esketamine's antidepressant effects may involve changes in emotion processing and cognition, with acute mood-lifting effects distinguishable from longer-lasting responses that consolidate after repeated administration.