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Krystal, a professor at Yale University, is talking about the time he gave seven severely depressed patients ketamine, a mind-blowing drug developed as an anaesthetic but better known as a club drug. It was a long shot, but the results were astonishing. Though most of the patients found the ketamine experience itself unpleasant, once it wore off they had a far better feeling: the disabling and suicidal depression they had lived with for years had vanished. Best known as a club drug, ketamine seems somehow able to jolt people out of severe depression. "For many, it was a huge, obvious effect," says psychiatrist John Krystal. "One of the patients said, 'Don't give me those old medications, I want this again'."

@ NewScientist.com