The Impact of Intravenous Ketamine on Attentional Bias: Probing Mechanisms of Rapid-Acting Antidepressant Effects in Two Clinical Studies.
Biological psychiatry April 15, 2025 Mary L Woody, Rebecca Rohac, Iya Cooper et al. 1 citation
A single intravenous dose of ketamine (0.5 mg/kg over 40 minutes) rapidly reduces attentional bias toward sad stimuli in adults with moderate-to-severe depression. A novel dual-probe video task measuring attentional bias showed good test-retest reliability at one week and one month before treatment. In two studies totaling 83 participants, attentional bias decreased from before to 24 hours after ketamine infusion. In the first study, attentional bias correlated with clinician-rated depressive symptoms at each pretreatment assessment. In the second study, reductions in attentional bias correlated with symptom improvement. The findings suggest that reducing attentional bias may be a cognitive mechanism underlying ketamine's rapid antidepressant effects.