Ketamine as an antidepressant, check it out and tell me what you think?

Question

http://www.ketamine.com/antidepressant-potential.html
Its a bit long so I'll forgive you for not reading it in its entirety if you don't want to, and here is a synopsis.
Reserchers have found in several studies that administering Ketamine (cat tranquilizer turned club drug) to patients for which no other antidepressant has worked, reversed their depression within hours and lasted for up to a week. Also, 14 out of 40 sufferers of a disease which causes its sufferer to sense normal fluctuations in temperature or little bumps as excrutiating pain have been completely cured.
What do you think?

Answer 1

Ketamine is a general dissociative anaesthetic for human and veterinary use.Ketamine is classified as an NMDA Receptor Antagonist. As with other pharmaceuticals of this type, ketamine is used extramedically as a recreational drug.
Ketamine has a wide range of effects in humans, including analgesia, dissociative anesthesia, hallucination, arterial hypertension, and bronchodilation. It is primarily used for the induction and maintenance of general anesthesia, usually in combination with some sedative drug. Other uses include sedation in intensive care, analgesia (particularly in emergency medicine), and treatment of bronchospasm. It is also a popular anesthetic in veterinary medicine.
nawww before you go..yawnnn!.... here's what yer lookin for:
The National Institute of Health News reports that a study of 18 patients led by Dr Carlos Zarate Jr. of the National Institute of Mental Health found that ketamine significantly improved treatment-resistant major depression within hours of injection. [3] The improvement lasted up to one week after the single dose. [4] The patients in the study were previously treatment resistant, having tried an average of six other treatments that failed. The importance of these findings was articulated by NIMH director Dr Thomas Insel: "To my knowledge, this is the first report of any medication or other treatment that results in such a pronounced, rapid, prolonged response with a single dose. These were very treatment-resistant patients." The researchers apparently attribute the effect to ketamine being an NMDA receptor antagonist. The study appears in the Archives of General Psychiatry. [5] Those findings of Zarate et al corroborate earlier findings by Berman et all. [6]

tell yu sumthin in a nutshell about the nmda receptor:
The NMDA receptor (NMDAR) is an ionotropic receptor for glutamate (NMDA (N-methyl d-aspartate)Activation of NMDA receptors requires binding of both glutamate and the co-agonist glycine for the efficient opening of the ion channel which is a part of this receptorNMDA Receptor Antagonists are used as anesthetics for animals and sometimes humans, and are often used as recreational drugs because of their hallucinogenic properties. However, large doses of NMDA Receptor Antagonists are postulated lead to a form of brain damage called Olney's Lesions.
This channel complex contributes to excitatory synaptic transmission at sites throughout the brain and the spinal cord, and is modulated by a number of endogenous and exogenous compounds. NMDA receptors play a key role in a wide range of physiologic and pathologic processes.NMDA receptors in a nut shell when antagonised cause a build up of glutamate.. a stimulatory neurotransmitter.. hence the effects at mood uplifting n hallucination.. n ultimately irreversible brain damage!

Answer 2

I wouldn't try it on your own until they know more about it, but that does sound interesting.

This from a review article in the October 12, 2006 issue of "Nature":

[When they took ketamine, Zarate's patients did experience trippy side effects such as dizziness and euphoria. But most of these effects wore off after 80 minutes3 — before the drug's antidepressant effects kicked in. That is surprising: usually, drugs that trigger highs, such as cocaine or ecstasy, are followed by a depressive low. "It's not what I would have expected," says Farber. "If anything, I would have expected these patients to crash and burn."

[One possible explanation for this is that ketamine uses different pathways to trigger its psychedelic and antidepressant effects. Another possibility is that patients have to go out of their minds before they can get back to normal. "What ketamine does is briefly make people crazy," says Eric Nestler, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas. "The question becomes: is that disruption in cognitive function what's creating this improvement in mood?"

[Right now, it is impossible to answer that question. But Zarate, Krystal and other researchers who have studied ketamine's link to depression have one idea about what's going on. Their hypothesis has to do with the way ketamine works in the brain.]


There's some more technical stuff after that about its chemical effects on the brain.

Answer 3

KETAMINE IS NOT AN ANTI-DEPRESANT DRUG and it has Anaesthetic values and should not be used for depression. -

Ketamine is a general dissociative anaesthetic for human and veterinary use. Its hydrochloride salt is sold as Ketanest®, Ketaset®, and Ketalar®. Pharmacologically it is very similar to other dissociative anesthetics such as tiletamine, memantine and phencyclidine (PCP). As with many other pharmaceuticals, ketamine is used extramedically as a recreational drug.

Ketamine is a chiral compound, with two distinct enantiomers. Most pharmaceutical ketamine preparations are racemic, however reportedly some brands have (mostly undocumented) differences in enantiomeric proportions.-

Answer 4

Do they artwork for everybody? - No. And there are various diverse drugs accessible, it would want to take a lengthy time period to locate the right one(s) for you and astounding dosage. you would want to work out your GP about this, as you want a prescription and to be monitored...yet they don't often prescribe to less than 18s as SSRIs improve suicidal urges extra significantly with youthful human beings. There are also undesirable area effects, negative aspects and so on. yet in case you bypass, they are going to probable refer you for some speaking treatment which will properly be even extra sensible. i ask your self why you don't want to enable your mothers and fathers recognize you're so unhappy. when you're unable to work out your GP without your mothers and fathers, you would possibly want to guage confiding in a relied on instructor or different man or woman, perhaps there's a school counsellor, college nurse, a form coach or head of three hundred and sixty 5 days? those human beings can help you you. i'm hoping that you ask for some help and experience extra effective quickly.

Answer 5

yaaaaaaaayyyyyy special k, i mean ketamine lol