Ketamine acts fast to treat depression and its effects last – but how?

For context, an SMD of 0.2 is small, >0.5 is medium, and >0.8 is large.[3]

Advantages of Ketamine vs other antidepressants

- Ketamine seems to have a much stronger antidepressant effect than our current antidepressants (To me this seems to be by far the most important/interesting thing)

- Benefits occur within hours rather than weeks

- Doesn't seem to interfere with sexual function, unlike many antidepressants

Main downsides of Ketamine for depression

- Much more expensive and normally not covered by insurance

- It's less well studied

- You have to go in for additional ketamine infusions to maintain the effects, it seems roughly ~1x a month long term

(The SMD for typical antidepressants seems to range from ~-0.13 to ~-0.35, with Tricyclic antidepressants slightly higher at around -~0.42.[4][5][6])

[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25038867

[2]: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/wps.20112

[3]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730804/

[4]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2903535/

[5]: http://www.annfammed.org/content/3/5/449.full

[6]: http://www.cochrane.org/CD011735/MUSKEL_selective-serotonin-...