Thomas A. Ban’s final reply to William Bunney's final comment

Thomas A. Ban: From Melancholia to Depression
A History of Diagnosis and Treatment
Collated by Olaf Fjetland

            Thank you for your recognition of my long time interest in identifying treatment responsive subpopulations within psychiatric diagnoses.

            I will follow with interest whether the finding of “a subgroup of treatment-resistant MDDs who show a rapid and dramatic response to low-dose ketamine” could be verified.  

            I think your report with Goodwin and Murphy in the late 1960s in which you verified, in a placebo-controlled study,  lithium’s  ”unequivocal” therapeutic efficacy in “bipolar depression,, i.e., in “typical “ MDP patients, with a history of both, “manic” and “depressive” episodes,  remains  the most significant contribution in this area of research to date (Goodwin, Murphy and Bunney, 1969).

Reference:

Goodwin, FK, Murphy DL, Bunney WEJr. Lithium carbonate treatment in depression and mania. A longitudinal double-blind study. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1969; 21:486-96. 

November 2, 2017