{"id":4859,"date":"2016-05-29T16:04:38","date_gmt":"2016-05-29T20:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=4859"},"modified":"2016-05-29T16:04:38","modified_gmt":"2016-05-29T20:04:38","slug":"the-secret-compound-behind-ketamines-antidepressant-properties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/the-secret-compound-behind-ketamines-antidepressant-properties\/","title":{"rendered":"The secret compound behind ketamine&#8217;s antidepressant properties"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4868\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4868\" class=\"wp-image-4868\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Ketamine_Vials-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Image via Wikimedia Commons\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Ketamine_Vials-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Ketamine_Vials-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-4868\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Image via <a href=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/8\/83\/Ketamine_Vials.jpg\">Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Ketamine is a fast-acting &#8216;dissociative&#8217; anaesthetic previously found to have antidepressant effects in humans. But the negative side effects of ketamine make it a problematic candidate for depression treatment.<\/p>\n<p>However, new research published shows that the compound responsible for ketamine&#8217;s antidepressant effects is actually formed as the body metabolizes and breaks down the drug. The study, conducted in mice, showed that this breakdown product provided antidepressant effects for at least three days without ketamine\u2019s typical undesirable side effects. The researchers hope this discovery will lead to more specific and effective treatment for depression in humans.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Authors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Panos Zanos, Ruin Moaddel, Patrick J. Morris, Polymnia Georgiou, Jonathan Fischell, Greg I. Elmer, Manickavasagom Alkondon, Peixiong Yuan, Heather J. Pribut, Nagendra S. Singh, Katina S. S. Dossou, Yuhong Fang, Xi-Ping Huang, Cheryl L. Mayo, Irving W. Wainer, Edson X. Albuquerque, Scott M. Thompson, Craig J. Thomas, Carlos A. Zarate Jr &amp; Todd D. Gould.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"NMDAR inhibition-independent antidepressant actions of ketamine metabolites\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/nature\/journal\/vaop\/ncurrent\/full\/nature17998.html\" target=\"_blank\">Original paper<\/a> published on May 4, 2016 in <em>Nature<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ketamine is a fast-acting &#8216;dissociative&#8217; anaesthetic previously found to have antidepressant effects in humans. But the negative side effects of ketamine make it a problematic candidate for depression treatment. However, new research published shows that the compound responsible for ketamine&#8217;s antidepressant effects is actually formed as the body metabolizes and breaks down the drug. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1471,2592,2593,2591,1678,2594],"class_list":["post-4859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-biochemistry","tag-clinical-depression","tag-depression-treatment","tag-ketamine","tag-neuroscience","tag-nmda-receptors"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Ketamine_Vials.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-1gn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4859"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4870,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4859\/revisions\/4870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}