Distinct Roles of Therapeutic Expectations and Dissociative Symptoms in Antidepressant Response During Ketamine Treatment in Routine Care
medRxiv Preprint Server April 23, 2026 Willys Cantenys, Zeynep Yoldas, Luc Masset et al. preprint
Ketamine works quickly as an antidepressant but also causes temporary dissociative symptoms. In everyday clinical settings, it is unclear how much of the antidepressant effect comes from patients' expectations versus from the dissociative experience itself, and how these factors relate to changes in depression over time.