Ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic used clinically for surgical anesthesia, can cause nerve damage, adverse emotional reactions, and other toxic side effects when abused. Its primary mechanism blocks N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDAR), but it also acts through multiple other pathways including AMPAR, opioid receptors, GABA receptors, monoaminergic receptors, cholinergic receptors, HCN channels, voltage-gated sodium channels, and L-type voltage-dependent calcium channels. This review summarizes the molecular mechanisms and toxic effects of ketamine to support forensic applications such as identifying symptomatic phenotypes of ketamine toxicity and detecting ketamine abuse.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) reduced the tendency to remember negative adjectives as being related to oneself, compared to a wait-list control group, among people with social anxiety disorder. After twelve weeks, participants who received MBSR remembered fewer self-related negative adjectives and more other-related negative adjectives than those on the wait list. The difference in memory for self- versus other-related negative words decreased in the MBSR group, and this shift toward equilibrium predicted reductions in social anxiety symptoms. The findings suggest MBSR may alter self-representations and self-other processing in social anxiety.