Neuropharmacology
July 15, 2018
Ashley M Fortress, Ian M Smith, Kevin C H Pang
Anxiety disorders and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) share a common feature of pathological avoidance behavior. The Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rat has been used as a model of anxiety vulnerability, expressing a behaviorally inhibited temperament, acquiring avoidance behavior more rapidly and displaying extinction-resistant avoidance compared to Sprague Dawley (SD) rats. Subanesthetic levels of...
Neuropharmacology
July 15, 2018
Maria Amat-Foraster, Anders A. Jensen, Niels Plath et al.
Sub-anesthetic doses of the non-competitive N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (NMDA-R) antagonist ketamine evoke transient psychotomimetic effects, followed by persistent antidepressant effects in treatment-resistant depressed patients and rodents through still poorly understood mechanisms. Since phencyclidine (PCP) disinhibits thalamo-cortical networks by blocking NMDA-Rs on GABAergic neurons of...
European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
July 14, 2018
Kenji Hashimoto, Chun Yang
The N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist (R,S)ketamine has been hailed as the most important advance in the treatment of depression for the past 50 years. The rapid and sustained antidepressant effects of (R,S)-ketamine have spurred a great deal of research interest, with growing off-label use for the treatment of depression, although the concerns about the safety of repeated...
Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry
July 10, 2018
Glòria Salort, María Álvaro-Bartolomé, Jesús A García-Sevilla
Ketamine (KET) is an antidepressant and hypnotic drug acting as an antagonist at excitatory NMDA glutamate receptors. The working hypothesis postulated that KET-induced sleep in mice results in dysregulation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) MEK-ERK sequential phosphorylation and upregulation of survival p-FADD and other neuroplastic markers in brain. Low (5-15 mg/kg) and high (150...
Neuroreport
July 4, 2018
Wei Pan, Guang-Fen Zhang, Hui-Hui Li et al.
Depression is present in a large proportion of patients suffering from chronic pain, and yet the underlying mechanisms remain to be elucidated. Neuroligins (NLs), as a family of cell-adhesion proteins, are involved in synaptic formation and have been linked to various neuropsychiatric disorders. Here, we studied the alterations in NL1 and NL2 in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), the anterior...
Molecular Psychiatry
July 2018
Bashkim Kadriu, Philip W Gold, D A Luckenbaugh et al.
Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) have clinically relevant, significant decreases in bone mineral density (BMD). We sought to determine if predictive markers of bone inflammation-the osteoprotegerin (OPG)-RANK-RANKL system or osteopontin (OPN)-play a role in the bone abnormalities associated with MDD and, if so, whether ketamine treatment corrected the abnormalities. The...
Biological Psychiatry
July 1, 2018
Chinnakkaruppan Adaikkan, Elham Taha, Iliana Barrera et al.
Ketamine is an N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist, which on administration produces fast-acting antidepressant responses in patients with major depressive disorder. Yet, the mechanism underlying the antidepressant action of ketamine remains unclear. To unravel the mechanism of action of ketamine, we treated wild-type C57BL/6 mice with calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II...
Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior
July 2018
Yun Wang, Liming Xie, Ce Gao et al.
Depression is a common, debilitating mood disorder, but currently available antidepressants have several major drawbacks. Both ketamine and scopolamine attract more and more attention due to their rapid and sustained antidepressant activities. However, the molecular and cellular mechanism that underlies the therapeutic action of ketamine and scopolamine still remain to be elucidated....
FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry
July 1, 2018
Gerard Sanacora, Rachel B. Katz
16 citations
A growing series of clinical trials and case series now suggest that ketamine-originally used as an anesthetic agent-potentially offers an exciting new treatment option for severe depression. Increasing numbers of studies show that ketamine can provide prompt relief for many depressed patients, including those with severe treatment-refractory depression. Although the effects of a single...
Journal of Psychiatric Practice
July 1, 2018
Lai Fong Chan, Choon Leng Eu, Shean Yih Soh et al.
18 citations
Ketamine has shown effectiveness as a rapid-acting antidepressant with antisuicidal effects in terms of reduction of suicidal ideation in the short term. However, the evidence for long-term maintenance ketamine therapy for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and suicidal behavior is limited. This case series (N=13) highlights the role of adjunctive serial maintenance ketamine infusions in...