CASE REPORT article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Psychopharmacology
This article is part of the Research TopicBridging the Gap: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Ketamine in Psychiatric Disorders - Volume IIIView all 5 articles
Ketamine in post-stroke depression: a report of 2 cases
Provisionally accepted
- Medical University of Gdansk, Gdańsk, Poland
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Background: Post-stroke depression (PSD) is a common comorbidity following a stroke, often leading to significant emotional and physical disability. While antidepressant medications can alleviate depressive symptoms, treatment resistance is frequently observed in PSD patients. Ketamine, an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, has shown potential as a treatment for depression due to its neuroprotective, anti-inflammatory, and psychoplastogenic effects. Its effectiveness in treatment-resistant post-stroke depression (TRD-PSD) remains underexplored. Methods: Two patients diagnosed with treatment-resistant post-stroke depression were treated with intravenous ketamine. Ketamine infusions were administered over a 4-week period in both cases, and the patients' depressive symptoms were closely monitored. Results: Both patients demonstrated improvement in depressive symptoms following ketamine treatment. The treatment was well tolerated, with minimal side effects reported, and no significant adverse events were observed during the treatment course. Conclusions: Ketamine may be a viable treatment option for patients with treatment-resistant post-stroke depression. Further research is warranted to better understand the efficacy and safety of ketamine in this specific patient population.
Keywords: post-stroke depression, Ketamine, Safety, tolerability, case report
Received: 06 Aug 2025; Accepted: 21 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 WŁODARCZYK, Słupski, Szarmach, Milewska and Cubała. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jakub Słupski, jslupski@gumed.edu.pl
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