Emotional Processing And Brain Metabolism After Pharmacological Stimulation With Ketamine

Ketamine is a potent glutamatergic NMDA receptor antagonist with rapid antidepressant properties at subanaesthetic doses, thus providing a valuable research tool for the investigation of the neurobiology of major depressive disorder (MDD). This multimodal imaging study in 14 healthy subjects reveals the neuropharmacological effects of a single intravenous subanaesthetic ketamine infusion on fMRI-BOLD responses during an emotional processing task and their relationship to glutamatergic metabolite concentrations in the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (PACC) assessed by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) and indicates a close relationship between BOLD reactivity and glutamatergic metabolism after pharmacological stimulation