Ketamine bottles, Wikimedia, USGOV-DOJKetamine, a commonly used drug for sedation and general anesthesia and an abused hallucinogen, strengthens neuronal connections in the brain that help rats overcome oppressive fear, according to a presentation at this week’s Neuroscience 2012 conference in New Orleans, organized by the Society for Neuroscience (SfN). The study could have implications for the use of ketamine to treat patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), who are often crippled by violent memories.
Current therapies for PTSD, including behavioral therapy and repeated exposure to stimuli representative of the original trauma, are largely unsuccessful at permanently ridding patients of their fear. “There is an urgent need to develop new drugs that improve current therapies,” study author Neil Fournier of Yale University School of Medicine said in a press release. “To extinguish fear, brain circuits must be remodeled and new nerve connections made, particularly in the brain’s medial prefrontal cortex. It now appears that ketamine spurs these kinds of changes.”
After conditioning rats to fear a particular tone, the researchers gave the animals ketamine or saline, then retrained them not to fear the tone. The next day, the rats that had been treated with ketamine were more likely to recall ...
