A Brief History of Ketamine

This video will give you a brief overview of ketamine and the rich history behind it.

First synthesized in 1962, ketamine was quickly adopted for anesthetic use and it rapidly became one of the most important emergency anesthetics still in use today. Notably, recent studies have demonstrated ketamine to be an effective rapid-acting antidepressant, creating a paradigm shift in the study of antidepressant drugs.

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Selected references for further reading:

-- The first pharmacological impressions of ketamine --
PHARMACOLOGIC EFFECTS OF CI-581, A NEW DISSOCIATIVE ANESTHETIC, IN MAN
E F DOMINO, P CHODOFF, G CORSSEN
PMID: 14296024 DOI: 10.1002/cpt196563279

-- Some insights to the early psychiatric investigations of ketamine --
The use of ketamine in psychiatry
E Khorramzadeh, A O Lotfy
PMID: 4800188 DOI: 10.1016/S0033-3182(73)71306-2

-- The story of Olney's lesions --
Pathological changes induced in cerebrocortical neurons by phencyclidine and related drugs
J W Olney, J Labruyere, M T Price
PMID: 2660263 DOI: 10.1126/science.2660263

-- The seminal clinical study of ketamine's antidepressant effecs --
Antidepressant effects of ketamine in depressed patients
R M Berman, A Cappiello, A Anand, D A Oren, G R Heninger, D S Charney, J H Krystal
PMID: 10686270 DOI: 10.1016/s0006-3223(99)00230-9

-- How ketamine may modulate plasticity and dendritic spines --
mTOR-dependent synapse formation underlies the rapid antidepressant effects of NMDA antagonists
Nanxin Li, Boyoung Lee, Rong-Jian Liu, Mounira Banasr, Jason M Dwyer, Masaaki Iwata, Xiao-Yuan Li, George Aghajanian, Ronald S Duman
PMID: 20724638 PMCID: PMC3116441 DOI: 10.1126/science.1190287

-- A brief review of ketamine from my perspective --
Ketamine-50 years in use: from anesthesia to rapid antidepressant effects and neurobiological mechanisms
Samuel Kohtala
PMID: 33609274 DOI: 10.1007/s43440-021-00232-4