Welcome to Nobody Told Me.

And I'm Laura Owens.

Did you know that depression is the leading cause of disability in the world?

Clinical depression affects some 16 million adults in the United States and a growing number

of children and teenagers.

If you or someone that you care about suffers from depression, you know it can be hard to

treat.

That's why there's been a lot of excitement about the promise shown by the drug ketamine

in treating depression. And joining us on this episode is Dr. Gerard Santa Cora, who was an internationally

recognized expert in the use of ketamine in psychiatry. He's a professor of psychiatry at the Yale

School of Medicine and also the director of the Yale Depression Research Program. Dr. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for inviting me.

We are all familiar with the word depression, but what is depression from a medical and

psychiatric standpoint, so we all know what we're talking about?

Yes, depression is one of those complicated terms because it has a presence in our everyday language where we can talk about being depressed.

But major depressive disorder or a major depressive episode is actually a serious medical condition,

mainly categorized or mainly characterized by loss of interest, loss of ability to experience pleasure,

but has other symptoms such as

problems with appetite and sleep, and even the loss of the desire to continue living, that

really play a prominent role.

How is depression usually traded and why is ketamine so promising?

So starting right about 50 years ago, a little bit more than 50 years ago, there was the

...