The Ketamine Question: Party Drug or Mental Health Breakthrough?

Описание: When Elon Musk publicly revealed he uses ketamine to manage his depression, the revelation sent shockwaves through both tech and mental health communities. Here was one of the world’s most high-profile figures openly discussing his struggle with depression and choosing a treatment that most people associate with anesthesia or illicit raves. But Musk isn’t an outlier. He’s part of a growing movement of people turning to ketamine when traditional antidepressants have failed them.

Ketamine has had a strange journey. Developed in the 1960s as a battlefield anesthetic, it became a staple in emergency rooms and veterinary clinics. By the 1990s, it had earned a reputation as “Special K,” a dissociative party drug. But in the past decade, researchers discovered something remarkable: ketamine works differently than any antidepressant we’ve ever had. It appears to rewire neural pathways in the brain, sometimes lifting severe depression within hours rather than weeks.

For people with treatment-resistant depression—those who’ve tried multiple medications without relief—ketamine represents hope where there was none. But it also raises difficult questions. How does a drug with such a complicated past become a legitimate medical treatment? What’s actually happening in the brain during ketamine therapy? And what are the risks of using a substance that can be both healing and addictive?

In this episode, I talk again with Dr. Shahrzad “Sherry” Sadighim, a clinical psychologist who runs a private practice in Brooklyn. In 2024, Dr. Sadighim completed the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research Program at the California Institute for Integral Studies, making her certified in psychedelic-assisted therapies and research. She walks me through ketamine’s fascinating history, its neurobiology, and what the current research tells us about its effectiveness and limitations.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Ketamine’s unlikely journey from battlefield anesthetic to party drug to mental health breakthrough
• Why Elon Musk and others are turning to ketamine for treatment-resistant depression
• How ketamine works differently in the brain compared to traditional antidepressants like SSRIs
• The science behind ketamine’s ability to rapidly relieve severe depression, sometimes within hours
• What happens during a ketamine therapy session and how it differs from recreational use
• The potential risks, including addiction and misuse, that come with ketamine treatment
• Who is a good candidate for ketamine therapy and who should avoid it
• The future of ketamine as a mainstream treatment for mental health conditions
• Whether ketamine’s success signals a broader shift in how we treat depression

🎧 Listen to the full episode: https://www.podpage.com/curiously/epi...

💡 Learn more about Dr. Shahrzad Sadighim’s work: https://www.doctorsherry.com/

💡 Listen to the previous episode on psychedelics and therapy: https://www.podpage.com/curiously/are...

💡 About Curiously: https://www.podpage.com/curiously/about/