Bioethics Blogs

Fighting Depression: Ketamine Metabolite May Offer Benefits Without the Risks

Thinkstock/Ryan McVay

For people struggling with severe depression, antidepressants have the potential to provide much-needed relief, but they often take weeks to work. That&rsquo;s why there is growing excitement about reports that the anesthetic drug ketamine, when delivered intravenously in very low doses, can lift depression and suicidal thoughts within a matter of hours. Still, there has been reluctance to consider ketamine for widespread treatment of depression because, even at low doses, it can produce very distressing side effects, such as dissociation—a sense of disconnection from one&rsquo;s own thoughts, feelings, and sense of identity. Now, new findings suggest there may be a way to tap into ketamine&rsquo;s depression-fighting benefits without the side effects.


Ketamine belongs to a class of drugs that block neurochemical receptors found on nerve cells called NMDA receptors, or NMDARs. These receptors respond to the chemical messenger known as glutamate, helping to form and maintain neural connections and play a role in memory. It wasn&rsquo;t clear, however, that this action of ketamine could explain its effects on depression, since clinical trials of other drugs targeting NMDARs failed to show the same antidepressant effects.
