Summary: Those with treatment-resistant depression showed significant improvement in symptoms and became more receptive to positive experiences following a one-week ketamine treatment regimen.
Source: Paris Brain Institute
Researchers from Inserm, CNRS, Sorbonne University and clinicians from the AP-HP and at Paris Brain Institute identified one of the mechanisms explaining ketamine effect as an antidepressant.
Ketamine, usually used as an anesthetic, was administered to patients with severe resistant depression. This treatment led patients to present an increased ability to overcome their negative beliefs about themselves and the world when researchers presented them positive information.
These results, published in JAMA Psychiatry, open new therapeutic avenues for the management of antidepressant-resistant mood disorders.
Depression is the most common psychiatric disorder: it is estimated that 5 to 15% of the French population will experience a major depressive episode during their lifetime. All age groups and all social backgrounds are affected.
The disease is characterized by sadness and loss of hedonic feelings that positive events do not improve. Depressed patients progressively develop negative beliefs about themselves, the world, and the future, that may develop into suicidal thoughts. These negative beliefs remain even when the patient receives positive information.
About one-third of people with depression do not respond to the most prescribed antidepressants, leading to a diagnosis of treatment-resistant depression (TRD). For these people, finding new and effective therapies is a priority.
Ketamine, a commonly used anesthetic, has been shown to influence resistant depression. While conventional antidepressant treatments take time to be efficient (on average three weeks), ketamine has a rapid antidepressant effect, only a few hours after administration. The mechanisms associated with this fast-acting antidepressant effect are still unknown.
To identify these mechanisms, Dr. Hugo Bottemanne and the research team co-led at the Paris Brain Institute by Pr Philippe Fossati and Liane Schmidt, Inserm researcher, coordinated a clinical study involving 26 antidepressant-resistant patients (TRD) and 30 healthy controls.
During the protocol, patients and healthy subjects were first asked to estimate the probability of 40 “negative” events which could occur in their lives (e.g., have a car accident, get cancer, or lose their wallet).
After being informed of the actual occurrence risks in the general population, patients and healthy subjects were again asked to estimate the probability of these events occurring in their lives. The research team was interested in the updating of beliefs after getting information.
Results showed that healthy subjects tended to update their initial beliefs more after receiving factual and positive information, which was not the case in the depressed patient population.
In the suite of the study, TRD patients received three administrations of ketamine at a subanesthetic dose (0.5 mg/kg over 40 minutes) in one week.
Only four hours after the first administration, patients’ ability to update their beliefs after receiving a positive information was increased. They became less sensitive to negative information and recovered an ability to update their knowledge com parable to that of control subjects.
Moreover, improvement in depressive symptoms after ketamine treatment was associated with these changes in belief updating, suggesting a link between clinical improvement and changes in this cognitive mechanism. “In other words, the more patients’ belief updating ability was increased, the greater the improvement in symptoms was”.
In conclusion, in this study, patients with antidepressant-resistant depression showed a significant decrease in symptoms and became more receptive to “positive” experiences after one week of ketamine treatment.
This work highlights for the first time a cognitive mechanism potentially involved in the early effect of ketamine. It paves the way to new research on antidepressant therapies modulating the mechanisms of belief updating.
About this psychopharmacology research news
Author: Nicolas Brard
Source: Paris Brain Institute
Contact: Nicolas Brard – Paris Brain Institute
Image: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: Open access.
“Evaluation of Early Ketamine Effects on Belief-Updating Biases in Patients With Treatment-Resistant Depression” by Hugo Bottemanne et al. JAMA Psychiatry
Abstract
Evaluation of Early Ketamine Effects on Belief-Updating Biases in Patients With Treatment-Resistant Depression
Importance
Clinical research has shown that persistent negative beliefs maintain depression and that subanesthetic ketamine infusions induce rapid antidepressant responses.
Objective
To evaluate whether ketamine alters belief updating and how such cognitive effects are associated with the clinical effects of ketamine.
Design, Setting, and Participants
This study used an observational case-control protocol with a mixed-effects design that nested 2 groups by 2 testing time points. Observers were not blinded. Patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and healthy volunteer participants aged 34 to 68 years were included. Patients with TRD were diagnosed with major depressive disorder or bipolar depression, had a Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale score greater than 20, a Maudsley Staging Method score greater than 7, and failed to respond to at least 2 prior antidepressant trials. Exclusion criteria were any other psychiatric, neurological, or neurosurgical comorbidities, substance use or addictive disorders, and recreational ketamine consumption. Data were collected from January to February 2019 and from May to December 2019, and data were analyzed from January 2020 to July 2021.
Exposures
Patients with TRD were observed 24 hours before single ketamine infusion, 4 hours after the infusion, and 4 hours after the third infusion, which was 1 week after the first infusion. Healthy control participants were observed twice 1 week apart without ketamine exposure.
Main Outcomes and Measures
Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale score and belief updating after belief updating when patients received good news and bad news measured by a cognitive belief-updating task and mathematically formalized by a computational reinforcement learning model.
Results
Of 56 included participants, 29 (52%) were male, and the mean (SEM) age was 52.3 (1.2) years. A total of 26 patients with TRD and 30 control participants were included. A significant group × testing time point × news valence interaction showed that patients with TRD updated their beliefs more after good than bad news following a single ketamine infusion (controlled for age and education: β = −0.91; 95% CI, −1.58 to −0.24; t216 = −2.67; P = .008) than controls. Computational modeling showed that this effect was associated with asymmetrical learning rates (LRs) after ketamine treatment (good news LRs after ketamine, 0.51 [SEM, 0.04]; bad news LRs after ketamine 0.36 [SEM, 0.03], t25 = 3.8; P < .001) and partially mediated early antidepressant responses (path a*b: β = −1.00 [SEM, 0.66]; t26 = −1.53; z = −1.98; P = .04).
Conclusions and Relevance
These findings provide novel insights into the cognitive mechanisms of the action of ketamine in patients with TRD, with promising perspectives for augmented psychotherapy for individuals with mood disorders.
