ketamine<\/a>, another fast-acting treatment thought to target similar glutamate pathways in the brain.<\/p>\n“Depression is a debilitating illness, made even more so by the fact that antidepressants make no meaningful difference for almost half of all patients diagnosed with it,” said Kiranpreet Gill, a PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham and first author of the report. <\/p>\n
“This study brings together the best possible evidence indicating that nitrous oxide has the potential to provide swift and clinically significant short-term improvements in patients with severe depression,” she said. <\/p>\n
Nitrous oxide could form part of a “new generation of rapid-acting treatments,” she added, noting the need for larger trials to determine safe, repeatable dosing strategies.<\/p>\n
More research on the long-term effects is needed<\/p>\n
The study found that side effects such as nausea, dizziness and headaches were relatively common, particularly at higher doses, but generally brief. <\/p>\n
No immediate safety concerns were reported.<\/p>\n
Still, researchers caution that long-term effects remain largely unstudied and the small number of existing trials makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions.<\/p>\n
The research forms part of work by the NIHR-funded Mental Health Mission Midlands Translational Centre, focusing on improving care for patients with severe and treatment-resistant depression. <\/p>\n
Building on the growing evidence, the team is now preparing what would be the first National Health Service trial in the UK to assess whether nitrous oxide<\/a> can be delivered safely and acceptably as a clinical treatment for major depression. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 01\/12\/2025 – 11:50 GMT+1 Nitrous oxide – better known as “laughing gas” – could offer fast,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[537,163,85,46,1717,522,523,1308],"class_list":{"0":"post-162745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-depression","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-medical-research","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-mentalhealth","15":"tag-treatment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}