[padjo]

But it did also find that using Ketamine to treat depression had about the same efficacy as knocking them out and shooting saline into them.

So maybe Ketamine does nothing and people just feel better when someone cares for them.

Anyway in the absence of an objective measure of depression everything seems to be on a loose footing

[LocalH]

I've never personally done ketamine, but what these studies fail to take into account is the simple fact that for most of these classes of compounds, the subjective psychological experience is the entire mechanism of useful action, and looking purely at the physiological side is missing the forest for the trees. Unfortunately, delving into the subjective with double blinding is damn near impossible, since the whole point of blinding is to remove the subjective aspects of the study.

I know my DMT trips have been so potent of an experience, that if you took that out of the picture and just left the physical aspects, it would be little more than vasoconstriction and elevated heart rate, and I fail to see how that would do anyone any therapeutic good.

[padjo]

I think this was the entire point of this study. The interesting and positive experience is what knocks people out of their depression. It’s not that drug experiences are particularly magical in and of themselves, apparently getting anaesthetised is about as effective. Taking hallucinogens or disassociatives just happens to be a low effort way of having an interesting experience. It helps that it also feels a little transgressive and edgy.

[spiralx]

Or that both ketamine and the blind had very similar pharmacodynamics and perhaps we should explore anaesthesia as a mechanism of action more broadly?