In 1985 a Soviet psychiatrist began giving his patients ketamine in hopes to cure their alcoholism. The experiment backfired, but the results tell us something about how ketamine might treat depression. Long buried behind the Iron Curtain, this episode uncovers that early research and traces it back to modern PET-scans, the "default mode network," and the experience of patients in ketamine clinics.

Publication Date: 7/8/19

Run Time: 12 minutes, 17 seconds

Article Referenced: "Esketamine Gets FDA Approval," The Carlat Psychiatry Report, June/July 2019 (https://www.thecarlatreport.com/newsletter-issue/tcprv17n6-7/)