KETAMINE RECONSIDERED

Monday, May 26, 2014 SPORK! 0 Comments

Ketamine is causing a lot of ‘buzz’ inside neuropsychiatry at the moment. Duman and Aghajanian called the substance in Science (2012) “the biggest breakthrough in depression research in a half century”. The APA (American Psychiatric Association) is dedicating a surprisingly large amount of time discussing the new implications concerning ketamine in the 167th ‘annual meeting’ this year (2014). Abrams says in The Atlantic (2012) that the effects of ketamine suggest that depression isn’t caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, as is believed by most neuropsychologist, but by damage to brain cells caused by chronic stress. Ketamine is said to stimulate the process of synaptogenesis (the formation of synapses in the brain), which repairs the damage caused by stress (Zarate 2006, Duman 2012). These findings could eventually become the base for a “synaptogenic hypothesis” of depression (Duman, 2012).

Ketamine is used very diversely in scientific studies [1], which shows well how contingent the ideas surrounding a substance can be. In 1962, eight years before the American president Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act and shut the door for research of the effects of substances like lsd, psilocybin and mescaline, ketamine was synthesised in the Parke Davis Lab in Detroit. Ketamine is considered an arylcyclohexylamine in chemistry, the same category that dextromethorphan (DXM) and phencyclidine (PCP) belong to. Ketamine, then still CI581, was initially explained as a fast-acting anesthetic for general use. It was used in the instance of severe damage to the skin caused by radiation or burns. Children were given ketamine when they had bad reactions to other tranquilizing substances or when a more superficial anesthesia was called for. Ketamine’s effects were popular in animal medicine as well. In 1970 ketamine started playing a significant role in the Vietnam war. Upon return, many veterans told stories about odd mental experiences which they had during operations for their injuries. It’s only when ketamine started to be used recreationaly [2] that the dissociative effect, the literal separation of mind and body, came to the forefront.

Read the full article at Stitching Open 

(http://stichtingopen.nl/en/home/website/ketamine-reconsidered)

> ‘Rave Drug’ Ketamine Proven to Lift Depression