Ketamine as a fast acting antidepressant: current knowledge and open questions.

ABSTRACT: Several recent studies have shown that a single intravenous subanesthetic dose of ketamine, a NMDA receptor antagonist, exerts rapid antidepressant effects in patients with treatment refractory mood disorders and reduces suicidal ideation. Those insights have fueled tremendous excitement in the efforts to elucidate the mechanism underlying ketamine's antidepressant properties in animal models of depression, as well as in humans through the use of brain imaging as well as peripheral blood measurements. For example, there is emerging evidence that ketamine's antidepressant properties rely on increasing AMPA signaling and rapidly inducing synaptogenesis. While pilot clinical studies are promising, a number of critical questions still remain unanswered. They relate to the safe and effective us

SUBMITTER: Salvadore G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6493512 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature