By Free Republic | Created at 2024-11-18 23:27:21 | Updated at 2024-11-19 01:29:34
2 hours ago
Discovery reveals how low-dose ketamine, a 'lifesaving' drug for major depression, alleviates symptoms within hours
Medical Xpress / University at Buffalo / Molecular Psychiatry ^ | Nov. 13, 2024 | Ellen Goldbaum / Jamie A. Abbott et al
Posted on 11/18/2024 3:25:13 PM PST by ConservativeMind
Neuroscientists have identified the binding site of low-dose ketamine, providing critical insight into how the medication alleviates symptoms of major depression in as little as a few hours with effects lasting for several days.
Ketamine has been used since the 1960s as an anesthetic, but in 2000, the first trial of far lower doses of ketamine proved its rapid efficacy in treating major depression and suicidal ideation.
Traditional antidepressants take months to kick in, which increases the risk for some patients to act on suicidal thoughts during treatment. Ketamine provides almost instant relief from depressive symptoms and remains effective for several days and up to a week after administration.
Ketamine binds to a class of neurotransmitter receptors called N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors.
"We demonstrate in this article how ketamine at very low concentrations can affect the activity of only select populations of NMDA receptors," says Popescu.
NMDA receptors are present throughout the brain and are essential for maintaining consciousness. For this reason, she explains, drugs that act indiscriminately on all NMDA receptors have unacceptable psychiatric side effects.
"We believe that the selectivity we uncovered in our research explains how low-dose ketamine can treat major depression and prevent suicides in people with depression," Popescu says.
Popescu's lab is among a handful in the world with the expertise to quantify the process by which NMDA receptors become active. This allowed Popescu and her colleagues to identify and measure what exactly changed during the NMDA activations when ketamine was present at very low doses versus when it was present at high (anesthetic) doses.
"The mechanism we uncovered suggests that at low doses, ketamine will only affect the current carried by receptors that had been active in the background for a while, but not by synaptic receptors, which experience only brief, intermittent activations," she continues.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
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Ketamine in low doses appears to selectively target receptors that have been active, seemingly engaged in causing active symptoms, while not affecting other normal or necessary receptors used occasionally.
It looks like ketamine has a reason to work, making it less mystical for use in treating depression.
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2 posted on 11/18/2024 3:26:18 PM PST by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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