Entactogen Effects of Ketamine: A Reverse-Translational Study.
The American journal of psychiatry September 1, 2024 Evan M. Hess, Dede Greenstein, Olivia L Hutchinson et al. 12 citations
Ketamine increases pleasure from social situations in people with treatment-resistant depression and promotes helping behavior in rats. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, participants who received a single intravenous dose of ketamine (0.5 mg/kg) reported greater pleasure from being with family or close friends, seeing smiling faces, helping others, and receiving praise for up to one week after treatment, compared to those given placebo. In a rodent experiment, ketamine-treated rats were more willing to forgo obtaining sucrose to protect a cage mate from electric shock, maintaining lower response rates for six days and delivering fewer shocks overall. These findings indicate that ketamine has prosocial, entactogen effects.