The acute hypoxic ventilatory response is a critical chemoreflex originating at the carotid bodies. This study investigates the impact of low-dose i.v. esketamine on the ventilatory response to 20 min of isocapnic hypoxia to test the hypothesis that esketamine does not affect hypoxic ventilation. In this open-label study, 18 healthy subjects received a 3-h escalating i.v. infusion of...
The anesthetic, analgesic and antidepressant drug ketamine produces dissociation with symptoms of psychosis and anxiety, an effect attributed to neuronal nitric oxide depletion following N-methyl-d-aspartate blockade. There is evidence that dissociation induced by racemic ketamine, containing both ketamine enantiomers (S- and R-ketamine) but not esketamine (the S-isomer) is inhibited by nitric...
BACKGROUND: Ketamine produces potent analgesia combined with psychedelic effects. It has been suggested that these two effects are associated and possibly that analgesia is generated by ketamine-induced dissociation. The authors performed a post hoc analysis of previously published data to quantify the pharmacodynamic properties of ketamine-induced antinociception and psychedelic symptoms. The...