R.I.P. Chris Rea🕯️

New trial on esketamine for suicidal patients (N=12). One suicide attempt, one patient started abusing ketamine, and one had repeated emesis. Underwhelming changes of suicide ideation and depression. Conclusion: "The treatment was generally feasible, well-tolerated and safe" Spin?

A robust biomarker for depression was found in this meta-analysis. But why did the systematic search only retrieved studies from China? www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

@ploederl.bsky.social und ich haben für Mad in Deutschland über das medizinische Modell der Depresison geschrieben. "Wie kam es, dass ein wenig belegtes Modell so wirkmächtig wurde – und welche Folgen hat das für unser Verständnis von psychischem Leiden?"

Ouch 🤕 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41356122/

Six journals rejected their commentary. Six! Journal system is really lousy in facilitating proper scientific process. @ploederl.bsky.social Diamond OA journal @robustnessreports.bsky.social would be a perfect fit. But I can see why you tried psychiatry journals to reach the audience. Catch22.

1/ What if a drug for anxiety disorder more likely makes you feel suicidal than help against anxiety? This was found for escitalopram in paediatric generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), but it was nonetheless approved. Let me explain and summarize experiences with trying to get this corrected in a🧵

1. Ketamine's estimated efficacy against depression is discussed to be biased by functional unblinding/expectations. Using ketamine as anesthetic (panel B) or adjunct to ECT anesthesia (panel A) is one way to guarantee blinding. See results of two studies that seem trustworthy:

Hello, new paper in @thelancetpsych.bsky.social : « Comparison of antidepressant deprescribing strategies in individuals with clinically remitted depression: a systematic review and network meta-analysis » authors.elsevier.com/c/1mFU8_oNJN...

Bernd Ulrich in der aktuellen @zeit.de

😂

More strange result from this study in the supplement. Note the extremely large effects for ketamine, and again the impossible values for the odds-ratios

This study randomized 12 depressed patients to ECT vs. ECT+esketamine. Depicted below is the trajecory of symptoms. For some strange reason, variability of results substantially, resulting in statistically significant differences. I have never seen this before. I don't trust this at all.

Ok, once again zoomed into these odds ratios - significant one's market in yellow im the paper 🙈 This is from a respectable journal in my field

This is the main result of a meta-analysis on different anesthetics for electroconvulsive depression treatment. Outcomes were response/remission rates (odds ratios). How can this pass peer review?

Zur psychischen Gesundheit der Jugend – ein Kommentar madindeutschland.org/zur-psychisc...

Wenn die Raten von Suizid(versuch)en & Antidepressiva-Verschreibungen steigen: was ist davon zu halten? Und wie reagierte man in der Psychiatrie darauf? Wie änderte sich der Diskurs in der Psychiatrie? Unser Blogbeitrag von @mad-in-america.bsky.social nun auf #madindeutschland, mit Aktualisierungen

"Clinicians should be aware that in light of small or doubtful efficacy, side-effects create an unfavorable harm-benefit ratio." - from the new commentary by @ploederl.bsky.social et al. #PsychSky www.jclinepi.com/action/showF...

Eine Anmerkung zur traditionsbewussten Ministerin für Europa, Integration und Familie von Gerhard Polt: youtu.be/quBREqA-VXA

So much for "truth-telling" - Dr. Nutt completely changed his view on antidepressants when psychedelics became big (he has COI's here, of course) Credit to Peter Scott-Gorden and Michael Hengartner for detecting this)

This makes my day 😆 holeousia.com/2025/12/05/t... Nutt's ties to the industry are enormous - exposing problems of "institutional corruption" (term from Cosgrove/Whitaker's book "Psychiatry under the influence").

PBS: "About 230 million people live at or below one meter of sea level. And around a billion people live below 10 meters. And cities are just not preparing for the type of sea level rise we may see..." #ClimateSky www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg7x...

Well done! A Massachusetts church displayed an “ICE was here” sign in its Nativity scene.

🚨 Our team has just published a Registered Report in BMC Medicine, one of the very few medical journals that offers this format (if we want better science, we should not follow journal impact factors, we should support journals with the best policies).

New paper just out with @constantvinatier.bsky.social and al. in Research Integrity and Peer Review. "Using reporting guidelines to improve the reproducibility of cooking Christmas tree meringues: the “People tasting trees” cluster-randomised controlled trial" link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Bringing critical views on the medicalization of mental health problems into political context. Important arguments in the discussion between @joannamoncrieff.bsky.social and @christophlane.bsky.social www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/side...

We might be at a stage where systematic reviews without checks of trustworthiness become a problem in itself - even a danger to patients, as these reviews are considered as highest level of evidence and the foundation of guidelines and clinical practice

Currently busy with updating a systematic review and have the impression that the flood of "clinical studies" from certain countries is intensifying - results too good to be true: enduring effects (usually uncommon), no drop-out, perfectly balanced sample sizes etc.

We just preprinted a huge meta-meta-analysis examining the effects of exercise on cognition, memory, and executive function In short - 2239 effect sizes - extreme between-study heterogeneity - extensive publication bias - some subgroup/exercise-specific effects More below (doi.org/10.31234/osf...)

MIA is excited to announce Mad in Deutschland has joined the Mad in the World! Their website has just launched at madindeutschland.org. Check out all the Mad in the World affiliates on madinamerica.com, with top journalism serving as a catalyst for rethinking psychiatric care around the world!

t is out in BMC Medicine with Ioana A. Cristea and others. REGISTERED REPORT ON ESKETAMINE IN "TREATMENT RESISTANT" DEPRESSION. IPD META-ANALYSIS. A more detailed post soon. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

„Also habe ich Chat GPT gebeten: ’Schreibe mir Sprüche für Lebkuchenherzen, die einen leichten queeren Einschlag haben, aber bei einem sehr rechten Landeshauptmann durchgehen‘.“ Bei dieser Besprechung im Büro Kunasek wäre ich wirklich gerne Mäuschen gewesen: www.falter.at/blauland/202...

It's online! Mad In Germany is here. Happy Birthday! madindeutschland.org

🚨 Breaking good news 🚨 Nun gibt auch Mad in Deutschland! madindeutschland.org

Evening

I think that’s basically correct, and the methods are selected for maximizing interest but also for falling into the goldilocks zone of understanding: simple enough so that readers don’t feel entirely overwhelmed, complex enough so that they can’t quite see through and understand the limitations.

Thesis: research in our field is driven more by new methods than by theories.

Rebecca Sear is on a mission to convince publishers to retract articles that use a database that purports to rank countries based on intelligence.

Diese Geschichte ist unfassbar. Weil der Trump-Regierung die Arbeit des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs nicht passt, wird ein französischer Richter digital de facto ausgelöscht und bekommt keine Kreditkarte und kein Bankkonto mehr:

The loss of efficacy of fluoxetine in pediatric depression: explanations, lack of acknowledgment, and implications for other treatments - Journal of Clinical Epidemiology www.jclinepi.com/article/S089...

this is mesmerizing

Wie kann man 53 werden und erst anlässlich seines Todes Ernst Kahl und seiner Großartigkeit erfahren??? www.spiegel.de/kultur/ernst...

Psychiatrie-Konferenz mit exzellenten ReferentInnen und, tata tusch: ohne Interessenkonflikte mit der Pharma-Industrie! 👏👏👏 Auch online www.hdmed.de/psychiatries...

Welcome to the world of "pure" biological psychiatry "MDD is increasingly understood as a disorder of dysregulated neuroplasticity rather than solely of neurotransmitter imbalance" www.biorxiv.org/content/bior... @padbergthorsten.bsky.social @joannamoncrieff.bsky.social @mad-in-america.bsky.social

The study describes how short visits, weak follow-up systems, and fragmented relationships leave responsibility for stopping antidepressants on the patient’s shoulders, even when guidelines call for regular review. By Richard Sears

Excellent review on microbiome & autism research "there may be a sense that “where there’s smoke, there must be fire,” but experience from other fields (social psychology, candidate gene association studies, neuroimaging...) has shown that actually there can sometimes just be lots of smoke.

I bet 5000 Euro that this can't be replicated in an independent study jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

I wrote about Tsatsakis, Aschner and Docea already back in 2021... forbetterscience.com/2021/10/06/o...

Exclusive: RW exclusively exposes fraud and antivaxxery by Tsatsakis, Aschner, Abdolhahi, Domingo, Svistunov and Docea. Totally exclusively. forbetterscience.com/2025/11/19/a...

Springer Nature flags paper with fabricated reference to article (not) written by our cofounder