Nitrous Oxide as Treatment for Major Depression - a Pilot Study
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02139540. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a global medical problem with significant shortcomings in current therapy. Chief among these is the delay between initiation of pharmacologic therapy and clinical improvement in symptoms. Recently ketamine, an NDMA-receptor antagonist has been shown to rapidly and effectively reverse the symptoms of MDD. Nitrous oxide, another NMDA-receptor antagonist, may produce the same effect with a cleaner side-effect profile and perhaps without the need for intravenous access and anesthesia personnel. Therefore, we propose conducting a pilot randomized placebo controlled double-blind crossover study in which patients will receive up to 50% nitrous oxide in oxygen or up to 50% oxygen in air for a period of one hour in addition to standard medical therapy. Depression severity will be assessed by a blinded observer pre-treatment, 30 minutes and 2 hours post treatment using the Hamilton depression rating scale.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT02139540
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase 2
- Enrollment
- 21 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years to 65 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Oct 31, 2012
- Primary completion
- Mar 31, 2015
- Completion
- Mar 31, 2015
- Last update posted
- Jan 26, 2020
2012 – 2015
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barnes-Jewish Hospital | St Louis | Missouri | 63110 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02139540, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Jan 26, 2020 · Synced Sep 10, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT02139540 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.