Ketamine hydrochloride is a product used in France in human and veterinary anesthesia. At certain doses, which vary according to the individual, it has hallucinogenic effects, which means that this product is sometimes used illicitly, in particular among cocaine users. But a new American study, conducted jointly by the Houston College of Medicine, Texas, and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, has found a new medical use for this anesthetic. Indeed, according to this study, administering a low dose of ketamine to people suffering from depression would cure this disorder in nearly 6% of them. Better: while most antidepressants only start to work after 4 to 6 weeks, ketamine would allow people with depression to get better in 24 hours!
“This study was carried out on 73 patients. Two-thirds of them received a low dose of ketamine intravenously. The remaining third received a dose of midazolam, another numbing drug. In fact, this is the first time that another numbing product has been used in comparison to ketamine. And we found that ketamine had an extremely rapid antidepressant effect in almost 64% of people. This effect persists for at least 7 days in all patients and begins to decrease from the 7the day. But a small number of patients did not experience further depression for at least four weeks, ”says Dr Sanjay Mattew, who led the study.
According to the researchers, ketamine reduces the effects of depression by influencing glutamate, the most important excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system.
“The only problem is that ketamine has known side effects: a feeling of floating, altered sense of time and sometimes blurred vision,” adds Dr Mattew. Studies will therefore be continued before ketamine can be used in the treatment of depression.
