On: Ketamine no better than placebo at alleviating dep...

[coldtea]

Not to mention other possible effects of being in general anesthesia (aside from the lack of consciousness) that prevent the effectiveness.

[cpncrunch → coldtea]

But you're neglecting the fact that this study found the same or higher effectiveness than non-blinded trials.

In this trial, there was a 50% response rate and 40% remission [1], whereas in a meta-analysis of previous unblinded trials there was 40% response and 30% remission [2].

[1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.28.23289210v... [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35688035/

So it's not that this trial wasn't effective, just that the placebo effect is very effective, and it likely resulted in the improvements seen.