Human beings can sometimes experience dissociative states, moments in which they feel disconnected from their body and the world around them. While these states have been linked to many psychiatric conditions, they can also ...
Researchers at Zhejiang University, China, have explored mechanisms for the sustained antidepressant effects of ketamine, suggesting that a direct N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) blockade might play a role.
(Medical Xpress)—Ketamine is a fast-acting antidepressant. However, it can create symptoms that mimic psychosis. Therefore, doctors don't give it to depressed patients. Memantine, a similar drug, does not have psychotomimetic ...
(Medical Xpress)—Many chronically depressed and treatment-resistant patients experience immediate relief from symptoms after taking small amounts of the drug ketamine. For a decade, scientists have been trying to explain ...
Oct 4, 2012
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In a recent study published in Molecular Psychiatry, researchers from Osaka University have used a mouse model of depression to reveal that one form of ketamine (a common anesthetic) in low doses can improve social impairments ...
Feb 22, 2024
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Ketamine, increasingly popular as a treatment for depression and pain, is often prescribed as an alternative to addictive opioids. But the data has been mixed on whether ketamine's effects rely on similar brain pathways as ...
Feb 12, 2024
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Rapid-acting antidepressants, including ketamine, scopolamine and psilocybin, have been found to have immediate and lasting positive effects on mood in patients with major depressive disorder but how these effects arise is ...
Jan 10, 2024
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Ketamine—an anesthetic also known for its illicit use as a recreational drug—has undergone a thorough reputational rehabilitation in recent years as the medical establishment has begun to recognize its wide-ranging therapeutic ...
Dec 4, 2023
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Hundreds of clinics may be using false and misleading statements in online advertising campaigns by offering off-label and unapproved ketamine to treat a variety of mental health and pain conditions, according to researchers ...
Nov 7, 2023
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In study after study, the psychoactive drug ketamine has given profound and fast relief to many people suffering from severe depression. But these studies have a critical shortcoming: Participants usually can tell whether ...
Oct 19, 2023
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Ketamine is a drug used in human and veterinary medicine. Its hydrochloride salt is sold as Ketanest, Ketaset, and Ketalar. Pharmacologically, ketamine is classified as an NMDA receptor antagonist. At high, fully anesthetic level doses, ketamine has also been found to bind to opioid μ receptors type 2 in cultured human neuroblastoma cells, however without agonist activity, and to sigma receptors in rats. Also, ketamine interacts with muscarinic receptors, descending monoaminergic pain pathways and voltage-gated calcium channels. Like other drugs of this class such as tiletamine and phencyclidine (PCP), it induces a state referred to as "dissociative anesthesia" and is used as a recreational drug.
Ketamine has a wide range of effects in humans, including analgesia, anesthesia, hallucinations, elevated blood pressure, and bronchodilation. Ketamine is primarily used for the induction and maintenance of general anesthesia, usually in combination with a sedative. Other uses include sedation in intensive care, analgesia (particularly in emergency medicine), and treatment of bronchospasm. It has been shown to be effective in treating depression in patients with bipolar disorder who have not responded to other anti-depressants. In persons with major depressive disorder it produces a rapid antidepressant effect, acting within two hours as opposed to the several weeks taken by typical antidepressants to work. It is also a popular anesthetic in veterinary medicine.
Ketamine is a chiral compound. Most pharmaceutical preparations of ketamine are racemic; however, some brands reportedly have (mostly undocumented) differences in enantiomeric proportions. The more active enantiomer, (S)-ketamine, is also available for medical use under the brand name Ketanest S. (R)-ketamine, (S)-ketamine & racemic (R,S)-ketamine all have qualitatively separate distinct effect profiles, although S has the most active potency. Ketamine is a core medicine in the World Health Organization's "Essential Drugs List", a list of minimum medical needs for a basic health care system.
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