S-ketamine exerts sex- and dose-dependent anti-compulsive-like effect as monotherapy or in augmentation to fluoxetine.

Female mice are less sensitive than male mice to the anti-compulsive-like effect of S-ketamine, both when used alone and as an adjuvant to fluoxetine. S-ketamine reduced compulsive-like behavior in female mice only at a dose of 30 mg/kg, whereas the effective dose in male mice is 10 mg/kg. Combining sub-effective doses of S-ketamine and fluoxetine reduced marble-burying behavior in both sexes, but male mice showed a better response. Variations in female sex hormones (estrogen and progesterone), inferred from the estrous cycle and ovariectomy, did not influence S-ketamine's effect.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Since a significant body of studies supports the involvement of glutamatergic neurotransmission in the neurobiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Ketamine, a glutamate N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist with rapid and sustained antidepressant effect, raises as a potential new anti-OCD drug. Evidence from pre-clinical studies indicates that female mice are more sensitive than male mice to ketamine antidepressant effects. Our group previously showed that S-ketamine, one ketamine enantiomer, induces an acute anti-compulsive effect in male mice. Herein, we investigated this S-ketamine effect in female adult Swiss mice as monotherapy or as an adjuvant to fluoxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), compared to male mice. For this purpose, we assessed the S-ketamine anti-compulsive-like effect in the marble-burying (MBT) and nest-building (NBT) tests in adult female Swiss mice. S-ketamine reduced the compulsive-like behaviour of female mice in both animal tests in a dose larger (30 mg/kg) than the effective dose in male Swiss mice (10 mg/kg, Tosta et al., 2019). The association of sub-effective doses of S-ketamine and fluoxetine effectively reduced the marble-burying behaviour of both male and female Swiss mice, although male mice present a better response. The variation of female sex hormones (oestrogen and progesterone), inferred by oestrous cycle and ovariectomy, did not influence S-ketamine's response. In conclusion, we found that female mice are less sensitive to S-ketamine's anti-compulsive-like effect than male mice as monotherapy or adjuvant treatment, but oscillations in female sex hormones concentrations do not seem to explain this difference.