The MADRS is a depression rating scale completed by a trained clinician after an interview. It was published in 1979 by Montgomery and Åsberg, who built it from the 10 items that changed most with antidepressant treatment, so that it would be sensitive to change (Montgomery and Åsberg, 1979). Scores run up to 60 (Popova et al., 2019).
Trials usually report the change in MADRS score from the start. In a 104-person psilocybin trial, scores at day 43 were 12.3 points lower than with niacin (Raison et al., 2023). In a 34-person DMT trial, MADRS scores fell 7.35 points more with DMT than with placebo at two weeks (Erritzoe et al., 2026). An esketamine trial reported a 4.0-point advantage at day 28 (Popova et al., 2019).
A difference of a few points can be statistically significant and still leave open how much it matters to a person. Response and remission are usually defined as set drops or cut-offs on the same scale. Because a clinician does the rating, trials try to keep raters blind to the treatment.
Sources
- Montgomery and Åsberg, British Journal of Psychiatry, 1979
- Raison et al., JAMA, 2023
- Erritzoe et al., Nature Medicine, 2026
- Popova et al., American Journal of Psychiatry, 2019
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