Original studyJournal of Psychopharmacology, 2026Read the paper →
People receiving treatment for opioid use disorder can still face cravings that are difficult to manage. A small study suggests that combining supervised ketamine sessions with mindfulness therapy may help some patients notice and use bodily sensations differently, although the proposed explanation remains preliminary.
The analysis, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology on 5 November 2026, examined data from an earlier randomised trial involving 68 adults. Researchers from the University of Utah and the University of California, San Diego studied participants who were already receiving buprenorphine for opioid use disorder.
Half were assigned to an eight-week programme called Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement, or MORE. The other half were assigned to the same programme alongside two planned ketamine-assisted psychotherapy sessions, with medical and psychological supervision.
MORE combines mindfulness practice with strategies for rethinking stressful experiences and paying attention to positive experiences. This new report focused on interoception, the ability to sense and respond to internal signals such as breathing, tension, or other bodily sensations.
Participants received smartphone prompts three times a day during treatment and for about a month afterwards. They rated how aware they were of sensations in their bodies, while separate questionnaires assessed skills such as listening to bodily signals and using them to regulate distress.
Momentary body awareness increased more rapidly in the combined-treatment group during the period leading up to and including the first ketamine session. Higher awareness was maintained into follow-up, but the measure captured perceived awareness rather than objective accuracy in detecting bodily signals.
The combined group also improved more on questionnaire measures of body listening and self-regulation. It did not show statistically significant advantages on all the other aspects of interoception assessed.
Changes in those two skills statistically accounted for part of the relationship between treatment assignment and lower opioid cravings at three months. An alternative analysis using a broader combined measure did not produce a statistically significant indirect effect, making the proposed mechanism less certain.
The study has clear limits. Although 68 people were randomised, 17 attended no treatment and were lost to follow-up, and only 19 participants assigned to combined treatment received any ketamine dose.
Posttreatment smartphone data were available from 18 people in the combined group and 15 in the mindfulness-only group. Participants knew their treatment assignment, and expectations could have influenced their self-reports in the absence of a placebo comparison.
The sample was mostly White and male and came from one academic medical centre in Utah. The trial was designed to detect changes in drug use, not to establish body awareness as a mechanism, so larger studies with objective measurements are needed.
The treatment developer disclosed income from teaching and books related to MORE. The findings concern a supervised addition to ongoing medication and psychotherapy, not evidence that taking ketamine independently or replacing buprenorphine with mindfulness is safe or effective.
