Using a cutting-edge in vivo brain microdialysis technique to assess the effects of ketamine administration in hippocampal glutamate release in male and female mice

Major depressive disorder affects more than 350 million individuals and is being ineffectively managed by current treatment options. A single dose of the novel antidepressant drug ketamine has been shown to rapidly induce antidepressant-like effects in both depressed patients and in preclinical rodent models of depression. It is theorized that ketamine’s therapeutic effects are mediated by a burst of glutamate, an excitatory amino acid, in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) inducing synaptogenesis or the formation of synapses in the PFC and the hippocampus (HIPP). Recently our group found that ketamine induced sex-specific synaptogenic effects in both the mPFC and HIPP and that these effects were more pronounced in the female HIPP. In order to further understand ketamine’s antidepressant effects in female mice, we implemented a cutting-edge in vivo brain microdialysis technique to assess putative sex differences in ketamine-induced glutamate release in the HIPP of male and female mice