Background: Early trauma predicts poor psychological and physical health. Glutamatergic synaptic processes offer one avenue for understanding this relationship, given glutamate's abundance and involvement in reward and stress sensitivity, emotion, and learning. Trauma-induced glutamatergic excitotoxicity may alter neuroplasticity and approach/avoidance tendencies, increasing risk for...
The ability of ketamine administration to activate prefrontal glutamate neurotransmission is thought to be a key mechanism contributing to its transient psychotomimetic effects and its delayed and sustained antidepressant effects. Rodent studies employing carbon-13 magnetic resonance spectroscopy (13C MRS) methods have shown ketamine and other N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists to...