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,...

Withdrawal problems rank among patients’ top concerns with antidepressants. They include insomnia, flu-like symptoms, irritability, distractibility, and unusual sensory experiences such as “brain zaps.” Earlier this year, a study examined clinical and biological research on tapers of serotonergic antidepressants. In this episode we discuss what they found.Publication Date: 7/1/19Runtime: 8...

Rarely used but often studied, amantadine is a medicine that doesn't fit neatly into any boxes. It's thought to work in OCD, autism, depression, cognition, ADHD, weight loss, sexual dysfunction, and traumatic brain injury. But how good is that research, and when should you use it? Chris Aiken and Kellie...

Follow our editor-in-chief Chris Aiken as he brings you practice-changing highlights from the American Psychiatric Association's 2019 meeting. Featuring an interview with Mark Rappaport on inflammation and depression. Learn about a biomarker that predicts antidepressant response, pharmacologic approaches cannabis and opioid abuse, and safe prescribing of omega-3 fatty acids. Part...

Does ginger ale really help nausea? Are hallucinations ever normal? Some of the answers may surprise as we bring you highlights from the June/July double issue of the Carlat Report. Included are practical tips on how to assess spectrum symptoms of mental illnesses, how to intervene in patients at risk...

A healthy diet is associated with an approximately 30% reduction in the risk for depression and a 40% improvement in cognition. That’s after controlling for education, income, other health behaviors, and body weight. This podcast discusses a recent interview with Felice Jacka, MD, Professor at Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria, Australia.

Unlike the typical antipsychotics, atypicals improve both cognitive and psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia, so they must have procognitive effects of their own that can be harnessed in mood disorders, ADHD, and even dementia. The problem is that the data show the opposite.Publication Date: 5/27/19Runtime: 8 mins, 35 secondsArticle Referenced: "Ask...

Earlier this month, five Insys Therapeutics pharmaceutical executives were found guilty of racketeering for their attempts to bribe doctors to prescribe the company's Subsys fentanyl spray, which was approved as a pain reliever for cancer patients, to people who didn't even need it. Their scheme included strippers, guns, cash, and...

Sexual side effects on SSRIs are so common that psychiatrist David Healy once argued these drugs more reliably lower libido than treat depression. Yet the problem isn’t limited to SSRIs, and it’s not unmanageable. In this episode Chris Aiken, MD, and Kellie Newsome, RN, discuss some useful strategies to manage...