Psychedelic drugs have reemerged as tools to treat several brain disorders. Cultural attitudes toward them are changing, and scientists are once again investigating the neural mechanisms through which these drugs impact brain function. The significance of this research direction is reflected by recent work, including work presented by these authors at the 2022 meeting of the Society for...
Subanesthetic ketamine evokes rapid antidepressant effects in human patients that persist long past ketamine’s chemical half-life of ~2 h. Ketamine’s sustained antidepressant action may be due to modulation of cortical plasticity. We find that ketamine ameliorates depression-like behavior in the forced swim test in adult mice, and this depends on parvalbumin-expressing (PV) neuron-directed...
Subanesthetic ketamine evokes rapid and long-lasting antidepressant effects in human patients. The mechanism for ketamine’s effects remains elusive, but ketamine may broadly modulate brain plasticity processes. We show that single-dose ketamine reactivates adult mouse visual cortical plasticity and promotes functional recovery of visual acuity defects from amblyopia. Ketamine specifically...