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All this shows is that ketamine while under general anaesthesia is not more efficacious than placebo. Ok then. This just seems like a failed attempt to introduce better blinding to me. I'm not convinced it sheds any light on the mechanism by which ketamine is effective.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see so many studies trying to somehow distill trippy drugs into an isolated, side-effect free, take a pill and get back to work treatment. Maybe there's something to be found there, would be huge, but my hope is that we don't waste all the will and funding down this path without more fully exploring the path where we admit that yes, the trip helps, and we'll just need to deal with the lack of blinding.
Literally the last line of the article: "Future studies of novel antidepressants with acute psychoactive effects should make stronger efforts to mask treatment assignment to minimize the effects of subject-expectancy bias." Instead of pondering if their method is at fault for their negative result, the conclusion is to double down and working even harder at masking the effects.
That line just says people should do better at this in future to get more accurate results. It's not a statement about the ultimate form the treatment should take.
Then it's still no worse than widely used SSRI's, which also mostly don't differ from placebo
Don't post lies and FUD here please.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Literally the last line of the article: "Future studies of novel antidepressants with acute psychoactive effects should make stronger efforts to mask treatment assignment to minimize the effects of subject-expectancy bias." Instead of pondering if their method is at fault for their negative result, the conclusion is to double down and working even harder at masking the effects.
Well, what they're trying to do is provide better blinding. Doing proper blind studies of ketamine is quite hard because its subjective effects are far too noticable. That line just says people should do better at this in future to get more accurate results. It's not a statement about the ultimate form the treatment should take.
> They gave volunteers ketamine while they were under general anesthesia, theoretically preventing the participants from going on a trip. Maybe it's the trip that helps.
> They gave volunteers ketamine while they were under general anesthesia, theoretically preventing the participants from going on a trip. Maybe it's the trip that helps.
I see so many studies trying to somehow distill trippy drugs into an isolated, side-effect free, take a pill and get back to work treatment. Maybe there's something to be found there, would be huge, but my hope is that we don't waste all the will and funding down this path without more fully exploring the path where we admit that yes, the trip helps, and we'll just need to deal with the lack of blinding.
'Schenberg points out that people often report dreamlike and visual, auditory, and affective experiences under anesthesia. “Maybe people who had dreamlike experiences during the anesthesia had more improvement than the people who didn’t,” he says.'
So maybe the trip does indeed help, but evidently it is not necessary to be able to remember if you had one to get the reported benefits.
> They gave volunteers ketamine while they were under general anesthesia, theoretically preventing the participants from going on a trip. Maybe it's the trip that helps.
Unfortunately, this means that the standard way of doing medicine research, with control group and placebo, is unlikely to ever be applicable to this area of research, and that a new epistemiology of medical research has to be developped for it. I find it super interesting.
(side note: if the idea of meditation as active engagement with "ways of looking" is intriguing you, I highly recommend looking up the teachings of Rob Burbea)
> They gave volunteers ketamine while they were under general anesthesia, theoretically preventing the participants from going on a trip. Maybe it's the trip that helps.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't post lies and FUD here please.
If you're gonna accuse someone of posting lies and FUD, at least have some sort of reference [0] to point to, please. Otherwise you're just participating in a "uh-huh!", "nuh-uh!" pissing contest. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0
> In a new study that is yet to be peer reviewed Thank you very, very much to the author for saying this
More often than not, it's either:
-a cursory glance by someone who doesn't have time to care
-a highly detailed critique from someone who will either be scooped or proven wrong, so they're looking for any reason to reject the paper, good or bad
-a grad student who puts in the effort but probably still lacks the experience for a good review
And if peer review actually was useful then the false cure for MS [0], arsenic-based life [1], or vaccines-cause-autism [2] would all be DOA and never been published in major journals to so much PR fanfare. Heck, most of Retraction Watch wouldn't be a thing [3].
[0] https://www.statnews.com/2017/11/28/multiple-sclerosis-paolo...
[1] https://phys.org/news/2012-07-scientists-nasa-arsenic-life-u...
[2] https://retractionwatch.com/2011/01/06/some-quick-thoughts-a...