Treatments like exercise, EPA supplementation, and SSRIs aim to change core biological functions, whereas ketamine focuses on rewiring neural circuitry.

“So you may have noticed a theme, which is that certain categories of approaches that we've been discussing for offsetting the symptoms of depression, such as exercise, ingesting EPAs, reducing inflammation, or even the SSRIs for increasing serotonin, focus on changing some core biological function, like raising the amount of a chemical, serotonin, or reducing the amount of inflammatory cytokines in the brain and body. And yet things like ketamine focus more on rewiring circuitry, changing neural circuitry so that it functions better in the immediate and hopefully in the long-term as well, and keep people with major depression in what they call, remission, away from major depression.”