Psychedelic Medicine is Here
Psychedelic therapy (using such drugs as MDMA, psilocybin, or ketamine) has shown great promise in clinical trials. Currently our practice conducts Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy in collaboration with physicians in the community. Moreover, MDMA-assisted psychotherapy has concluded Stage 3 FDA trials with an impressive safety and efficacy profile and is expected to receive full FDA approval as soon as summer 2024. Once MDMA becomes FDA approved, Dr. Helfman will provide MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy. She has trained extensively with MAPS, the organization spearheading and conducting the FDA trials.
What Is Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)?
KAP is a hybrid mental health treatment involving medical and psychological components. In a clinical setting, ketamine treatment can be life saving and bring relief to individuals who have not responded to conventional methods of treatment. Ketamine can provide near-immediate relief from emotional pain, while helping individuals look deeply into themselves. Profound shifts in states of consciousness have the potential to lift mood and offer new insights into one’s life, serving as a powerful catalyst for greater personal growth.
In KAP, we work alongside you every step of the way: helping to prepare before your ketamine session, offering support during each medicine session and providing structure to integrate your experiences afterward. Adequate preparation can go a long way toward creating safe, powerful, and healing experiences for you. Psychedelic therapy is not a magic pill; it involves active participation on your end.
Our protocols are carefully individualized and paced with preparatory and integrative sessions over the course of treatment. We work in partnership with board certified physicians to offer the necessary safety and medical monitoring/screening assessments. We work with you and our board certified physicians to find the best treatment protocol that addresses your specific needs and we carefully follow your rate of response. As treatment continues beyond an initial period we will make recommendations to sustain and amplify your level of response. If you are already engaged in psychotherapy on a regular basis, we will coordinate treatment sessions and integration with that provider to maximize therapeutic benefit.
How This Is Different: Your Brain on Ketamine
Ketamine is believed to produce its therapeutic effects through several novel mechanisms such as increasing production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and reducing activity in the default mode network (DMN).
Fertilizing the Brain with BDNF
Ketamine rapidly up-regulates the release of BDNF. Aptly called fertilizer for the brain, BDNF is a protein that helps promote the growth, differentiation, maturation, maintenance, and survival of neurons in the nervous system. We know that the brain’s ability to continuously adapt its structure in response to its activity (a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity) is impaired in states of chronic stress, anxiety, and depression. By increasing BDNF production, ketamine enhances neuroplasticity and allows your brain to open and form new circuits in learning, memory, emotional regulation and higher thinking.
At the same time, ketamine stimulates a central cell pathway called mTOR, which regulates many processes involved in cell growth, including synthesizing the proteins needed for long-term memory. In combination with increased BDNF production, mTOR stimulation improves synaptic connectivity in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, key areas of the brain associated with emotional regulation, and reverses the synaptic damage that occurs in these areas when the brain is subjected to chronic stress.
Owing to these neuroplastic effects, regrowth of dendritic spines can happen within a few hours of a therapeutic ketamine dose. When the atrophied neurons can repair the damage and regrow their connections with other neurons, symptoms of depression and anxiety can improve.
The default mode network (DMN) refers to the activity of specific groups of brain structures that are involved in memory, emotion, and our sense of self. It is involved in sustaining regular, everyday states of consciousness. Unfortunately, this everyday consciousness can often involve negative, ruminating thought patterns. The brain can get stuck in these patterns, especially under states of impaired neuroplasticity caused by chronic stress, anxiety, and depression, as mentioned above. Ketamine quiets the DMN, allowing other regions of the brain to become more active.