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I was told that recent research shows that ketamine is equally effective to, and not more effective than, SSRIs when used as a regular medication, for example as a nasal spray.

However, is it believed that ketamine has less side effects than SSRIs, for example, weight gain, dependence, etc?

Julius Hamilton
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    Have you performed any research on this that you can share? The problem is that 'less side effects' is ambiguous; suppose drug A has 5 mild side effects (all <0.01% chance and not harmful), whereas drug 'B' has just one side effect, namely 99% chance of dying (this is a bizarre case for illustrative purposes :) ), which drug has less side effects? A great way to remove ambiguities is by adding your own research efforts, which helps to focus and clarify the question (for instance what do you mean with less side effects), so you can help us to help you get the answer you need. – AliceD Sep 19 '22 at 08:04
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    In addition it would be helpful for clarity if you were to point out what ketamine is supposed to be "equally effective" at? SSRIs have many applications (depression, anxiety, PtSD, post menopausal symptom control etc.), and not all are equally useful for each. – Jiminy Cricket. Sep 19 '22 at 15:13
  • I think you may be referring to S-ketamine which was recently approved for depression. – Arnon Weinberg Nov 30 '22 at 04:45

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Basically- There are different receptor sets in the brain. Ketamine is a NMDA (glutamate) receptor antagonist. Sertraline, for ex. is an SSRI - selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.

Therefore, each drug has a different mechanism of action. Thus different side effect “profiles”.

Ketamine is 80% effective when used to treat Treatment-Resistant Major Depressive Disorder (quoting from peer-reviewed pubmed too lazy to find). It also “works” faster (but in a different fashion) than an SSRI will. You won’t see weight gain or sexual dysfunction side effects commonly associated with SSRI usage. There is “dependence” with both. However esketamine (s-isomer) when used therapeutically should not produce an overwhelming state of dependence.

sunnyskeptic
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    "quoting from peer-reviewed pubmed too lazy to find" is entirely unacceptable here - we expect answers to be backed up. – Bryan Krause Sep 21 '22 at 14:33