Background: (R)-Ketamine exhibits rapid and sustained antidepressant effects in animal models of depression. It is stereoselectively metabolized to (R)-norketamine and subsequently to (2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine in the liver. The metabolism of ketamine to hydroxynorketamine was recently demonstrated to be essential for ketamine's antidepressant actions. However, no study has compared the...
Accumulating evidence suggests a key role of the gut-microbiota-brain axis in the antidepressant actions of certain compounds. Ketamine, an N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist, showed rapid and sustained antidepressant effects in treatment-resistant depressed patients. In contrast, another NMDAR antagonist, lanicemine, did not exhibit antidepressant effects in such patients....
We investigated the rapid and sustained antidepressant effects of enantiomers of ketamine in N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor GluN2D subunit knockout (GluN2D-KO) mice. Intraperitoneal administration of ketamine or its enantiomers 10 min before the tail-suspension test exerted significant antidepressant effects on restraint stress-induced depression in both wildtype and GluN2D-KO mice. The...
Depression is often misdiagnosed as major depressive disorder in patients with bipolar disorder. Therapeutic drugs for these two disorders are quite different, but the anesthetic ketamine shows fast-acting antidepressant effects in treatment-resistant patients with these disorders. Here, we discuss biomarkers for both disorders, recent findings regarding ketamine, and predictable biomarkers for...
Although pain is frequently accompanied with depression, little is known about the risk factors contributing to individual differences to the comorbidity of pain and depression. In this study, we examined whether cytokines and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) might contribute to the individual differences in the development of neuropathic pain-induced depression. Rats were randomly...
Major depression is a serious psychiatric disorder and remains a leading cause of disability worldwide. Conventional antidepressants take at least several weeks to achieve a therapeutic response and this lag period has hindered their ability to attain beneficial effects in depressed individuals at high risk of suicide. The non-competitive N-methyl-D-aspartate glutamate receptor antagonist...
Background: Similar to the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist ketamine, the metabotropic glutamate 2/3 receptor antagonist, MGS0039, shows antidepressant effects. However, there are no reports comparing these 2 compounds in the social defeat stress model of depression. Methods: We examined the effects of MGS0039 (1 mg/kg) and ketamine (10 mg/kg) on depression-like behavior in susceptible...
The N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist ketamine is one of the most attractive antidepressants since this drug causes rapid-onset and sustained antidepressant effects in treatment resistant patients with depression. There are unanswered questions about how ketamine induces its rapid and sustained antidepressant actions. This key article suggests that (2R,6R)-HNK...
RATIONALE: The N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists, including R-ketamine and rapastinel (formerly GLYX-13), show rapid antidepressant effects in animal models of depression. OBJECTIVE: We compared the rapid and sustained antidepressant effects of R-ketamine and rapastinel in the social defeat stress model. RESULTS: In the tail suspension and forced swimming tests, R-ketamine (10...
Letter to the Editor: R-ketamine: a rapid-onset and sustained antidepressant without risk of brain toxicity Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2016 K. Hashimoto Show author details K.
Clinical use of the rapid antidepressant drug ketamine is limited, due to psychotomimetic side effects. R-ketamine appears to be a potent, long-lasting and safer antidepressant, relative to S-ketamine (esketamine), since it is free of psychotomimetic side effects. Repeated, intermittent administration of esketamine (10mg/kg, once per week for 8-weeks), but not R-ketamine, caused loss of...
R-ketamine appears to be a potent, long-lasting and safer antidepressant, relative to esketamine (S-ketamine), since it might be free of psychotomimetic side effects. Using [11C]raclopride and positron emission tomography (PET), we investigated whether esketamine and R-ketamine can affect dopamine D2/3 receptor binding in the conscious monkey brain. A single infusion of esketamine (0.5 mg/kg),...
Although ketamine shows a rapid and sustained antidepressant effect, the precise mechanisms underlying its effect are unknown. Recent studies indicate a key role of p11 (also known as S100A10) in depression-like behavior in rodents. The present study aimed to investigate the role of p11 in the antidepressant-like action of ketamine in chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) rat model. The...
Although the efficacy of racemate ketamine, a rapid onset and sustained antidepressant, for patients with treatment-resistant depression was a serendipitous finding, clinical use of ketamine is limited, due to psychotomimetic side effects and abuse liability. Behavioral and side-effect evaluation tests were applied to compare the two stereoisomers of ketamine. To elucidate their potential...
Glutamate, a major excitatory neurotransmitter, plays important roles in synaptic plasticity, such as long-term potentiation (LTP) and new synapse formation. Growing evidence suggests that glutamate signaling is involved in the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BP). Postmortem brain studies demonstrated altered...
This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Combination of Nitrous Oxide with Isoflurane or Scopolamine for Treatment-resistant Major...
BACKGROUND: Clinical studies demonstrate that the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, ketamine, induces rapid antidepressant effects in patients with refractive major depressive disorder and bipolar depression. This rapid onset of action makes ketamine a highly attractive drug for patients, particularly those who do not typically respond to therapy. A recent study suggested that...
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common, chronic, recurrent mental illness that affects millions of individuals worldwide. Currently available antidepressants are known to affect the monoaminergic (e.g., serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine) systems in the brain. Accumulating evidence suggests that the glutamatergic neurotransmission via the excitatory amino acid glutamate also plays an...
Some patients with major depressive disorder remain resistant to antidepressant medication. A randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial demonstrated that a single subanesthetic dose (0.5 mg/kg) of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist ketamine caused a rapid antidepressant effect within hours in treatment-resistant patients with major depressive disorder. However, the precise...
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common, chronic, recurrent mental illness that affects millions of individuals worldwide. To date, the monoaminergic systems (serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine) have received the most attention in the neurobiology of MDD, and all classes of antidepressants target these monoaminergic systems. Accumulating evidence suggests that the glutamatergic system...
Although preclinical studies suggest that methylone (2-methylamino-1-[3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl]propan-1-one) and 5-MeO-MIPT (5-methoxy-N-methyl,N-isopropyl tryptamine) may have psychostimulant properties, the scientific reports about the clinical effects of these agents are scant. We describe a 27-year-old male patient with substance intoxication after a single ingestion of the mixture of...
The reduction of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) in rat brain 3 h after administration of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) was attenuated significantly by coadministration of benzylpiperazine derivatives (p-nitrobenzylpiperazine, p-chlorobenzylpiperazine and 1-piperonylpiperazine), which were weak inhibitors of [3H]5-HT uptake into rat brain synaptosomes. However, the coadministration of...
The effects of 1-piperonylpiperazine and N,alpha-dimethylpiperonylamine, which are weak inhibitors for [3H]5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) uptake, on 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-induced neurotoxicity were examined. The reductions of serotonergic parameters in the rat cerebral cortex produced by multiple administration of MDMA (10 mg/kg) were attenuated significantly by coadministration...
The neurotoxicity of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) in rat brain was attenuated significantly by coadministration of several benzylpiperazines (p-nitrobenzylpiperazine, p-chlorobenzylpiperazine and 1-piperonylpiperazine), which were weak inhibitors for [3H]6-nitroquipazine binding to the 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) transporter in rat brain. These results suggest that these...
The effects of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) on the in vivo binding of [3H]paroxetine, a potent and selective 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT; serotonin) uptake inhibitor, in the brain of the mouse were studied. The distribution of radioactivity in the brain of the mouse, after intravenous administration of [3H]paroxetine, was significantly altered by pretreatment with MDMA (15 mg/kg,...