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Ketamine Is 'Magic Drug' For Depression
Good [+2]Toggle ReplyLink» Nuclear a répondu le Fri 20 Aug, 2010 @ 2:20am
nuclear
Coolness: 2603785
A single dose of the drug Ketamine acts like "magic" lifting people out of depression in hours and lasting more than a week, scientists claim.




Obviously the daily telegraph from the UK thinks this is news...

[ www.telegraph.co.uk ]

The drug has traditionally been used as an anaesthetic for animals and, in some cases, humans – but has also established itself as a nightclub favourite in recent years, where it is nicknamed Special K.

But studies have found it can treat depression within hours, even when years of alternative treatments have failed.

And the effects of just one dose can last up to 10 days.

Most antidepressant drugs currently available on prescription need several months or even years to take effect and must be taken everyday.

However, scientists discovered that rats given ketamine stopped displaying symptoms of depressive behaviour within hours of their first fix.

The drug was even shown to restore brain-connections damaged by stress.

A similar study conducted at the Connecticut Mental Health Centre also found 70 per cent of depressed patients who failed to respond to years of treatment on traditional antidepressants improved within hours of receiving a dose of ketamine.

Professor Ronald Duman, at Yale University, discovered that ketamine progresses through the nervous system in a different way to traditional drugs.

It follows a pathway that rapidly forms new synaptic connections between neurons, a process called "synaptogenesis".

Professor Duman hailed the potential of ketamine. He said: "It's like a magic drug — one dose can work rapidly and last for seven to 10 days."

Until now, ketamine's clinical use has been limited by the fact that it has to be injected and can cause hallucinations.

But it only needs to be used in low doses for depression.

George Aghajanian, co-researcher on the study published in the journal Science also warned that the drug needed further analysis and modification before it could be approved for general use.

He said: "The pathway is the story.

"Understanding the mechanism underlying the antidepressant effect of ketamine will allow us to attack the problem at a variety of possible sites within that pathway."

Glenn Garnham, a drug and alcohol counsellor for UK charity Admit voiced concerns over the study's findings.

He said: "Ketamine is a very addictive drug which is normally used on horses. I deal with many people who are addicted to ketamine and it affects their life in the same way as any other addiction does, leading to serious problems with health, money, friends and family.

"It is already very cheap and easy to become addicted to – approving it for medical use might remove some of its stigma and lead more people down the path of addiction."

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Antidepressant's Unusual Speed Explained

Neuroscience: Ketamine, which can overcome depression in hours, stimulates rapid synapse formation

[ pubs.acs.org ]

Unlike commercially available antidepressants, which require weeks or months to take effect, a single dose of ketamine can overcome depression in hours, a speed advantage that can spell the difference between life and death for suicidal patients. Researchers at Yale University School of Medicine have now discovered why the compound works so fast. Their findings illuminate the mechanisms underlying depression and also suggest new targets for its treatment.

Depression is believed to correlate with a reduction in the number of synapses, or connections between neurons, in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, notes Ronald S. Duman, who studies molecular psychiatry and pharmacology at Yale. Duman's team now reports that ketamine undoes this damage by increasing the number of these synapses in rats within 24 hours of administration, whereas traditional treatments do not (Science 2010, 329, 959).

The researchers determined that ketamine stimulates the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling cascade, which is involved in protein synthesis and synaptic modification in neurons. Ketamine activates this pathway by preventing the neurotransmitter glutamate from binding to the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) class of receptors on neurons.

"Together, these findings suggest that the rapid activation of mTOR-mediated signaling pathways may be an important and novel strategy for the rational design of fast-acting antidepressants," note John F. Cryan and Olivia F. O'Leary, neuropharmacologists at University College Cork, in Ireland, in a commentary about the work (Science 2010, 329, 913). They add that drugs that target this pathway would provide an alternative to the antidepressants currently on the market, nearly all of which function by boosting brain levels of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and norepinephrine.

Ketamine itself is unsuitable as a commercial antidepressant. At doses higher than required for the antidepressant effect, it serves as an anesthetic. It can induce hallucinations—hence its popularity as the street drug "Special K"—and it must be injected. Ketamine can be administered by a doctor, but this practice is inconvenient because the antidepressant effect of a dose wears off after about a week.

The pharmaceutical industry is now trying to develop safe, fast-acting antidepressants that can be given orally and can't be abused, says Duman.

One lead is Ro 25-6981, a compound originally developed by Roche. Duman's team showed that the compound acts on the mTOR pathway, just as ketamine does. But Ro 25-6981 might avoid ketamine's side effects because it activates only the NR2B subclass of NMDA receptors, Duman says.

Last month, Roche and the drug discovery and development firm Evotec announced the start of Phase II clinical studies of another potential rapidly acting antidepressant, a selective NR2B inhibitor called EVT 101.

Researchers hope that ketamine substitutes will preserve another impressive characteristic of the anesthetic—its ability to overcome depression in patients who don't respond to conventional treatments. For example, Carlos A. Zarate Jr., chief of experimental therapeutics at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues recently reported that a single injection of ketamine reduced depression after just 40 minutes in bipolar patients who had failed to obtain relief from other treatments (Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 2010, 67, 793). Furthermore, only 6% of participants responded to placebo, but 71% responded to ketamine.

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BTW: I lot of people here seem to think the flower crap they get is Ketamine... IT IS NOT...

If it does not look like this, it's probably not what you think it is...

It pisses me off that people want to make money so bad they pass crap just to make money...





I'm feeling nuclear right now..
Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» Spinner a répondu le Sun 22 Aug, 2010 @ 3:48am
spinner
Coolness: 76970
Nice info.. hehe...
I'm feeling on fire bitches right now..
Ketamine Is 'Magic Drug' For Depression
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