Adding mindfulness, music, and a light-occluding eye mask during ketamine infusion for depression did not improve antidepressant effects compared to ketamine alone, but it enriched the subjective experience. Participants in the combined sensory intervention group reported deeper engagement, a stronger sense of connection to reality, increased focus, moments of relief from sadness, and feelings of awe and spiritual insight. However, four individuals in that group reported discomfort. The findings suggest that while the sensory interventions make the experience more meaningful for many, they may cause discomfort for a few, and making them optional could avoid this.
A single intravenous infusion of ketamine rapidly reduces depressive symptoms in people with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder. In a double-blind, crossover, placebo-controlled study with 19 depressed individuals and 15 healthy volunteers, magnetoencephalographic recordings were taken before and six to nine hours after drug or placebo infusion while participants performed an emotional face attention task. Dynamic causal modeling revealed that ketamine accelerated GABA and NMDA transmission in the early visual cortex, sped NMDA transmission in the fusiform cortex, and slowed NMDA transmission in the amygdala.