Níall Lally

Individuals with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) often exhibit cognitive deficits, including changes in working memory (WM). Ketamine, known for its rapid antidepressant effects, may improve cognition in TRD. We explored baseline WM differences between TRD and healthy volunteers (HV) and assessed the impact of ketamine on WM in both groups. We hypothesized that TRD would have worse baseline WM than HV and that WM would improve in TRD following treatment with ketamine but not in HV.

Anhedonia is a cardinal symptom of major depression and is often refractory to standard treatment, yet no approved medication for this specific symptom exists. In this exploratory re-analysis, we assessed whether administration of rapid-acting antidepressant ketamine was associated specifically with reduced anhedonia in medication-free treatment-refractory patients with major depressive disorder in an open-label investigation.