Ketamine in Bipolar Disorder: A Review

Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2020 Nov 12:16:2707-2717. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S282208. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a psychiatric illness associated with high morbidity, mortality and suicide rate. It has neuroprogressive course and a high rate of treatment resistance. Hence, there is an unquestionable need for new BD treatment strategies. Ketamine appears to have rapid antidepressive and antisuicidal effects. Since most of the available studies concern unipolar depression, here we present a novel insight arguing that ketamine might be a promising treatment for bipolar disorder.

Keywords: bipolar disorder; ketamine; neuroprogression; staging; treatment resistance.

Publication types

  • Review

Grants and funding

This paper was funded by the Medical University of Gdańsk, Poland (Grant No. ST-02-0039/07/221).