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Opioid System's Involvement In Ketamine's Antidepressant-Like Effects, Fan Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

Depression is one of the most debilitating disorders in the world. The currently available medications typically have a 2-4 week delay in their therapeutic effects and are ineffective for about 40% of patients. In 2000, a subanesthetic dose (0.5 mg/kg i.e.) of the dissociative anesthetic ketamine was reported to have both rapid and robust antidepressant effects in in treatment-resistant depressed patients. However, the mechanisms responsible for ketamine’s antidepressant effects remain unclear. In 2018, a clinical study reported that pretreatment with the nonselective opioid antagonist naltrexone attenuated the rapid antidepressant effect of ketamine in depressed patients. The current study investigated the …