11/08/2022
Many wonder how ketamine differs from the traditional antidepressants available to manage treatment resistant depression.
Ron Dunman, psychiatrist and neurobiologist of Yale University says that depression is associated with a loss of synaptic connections between nerve cells. "A healthy neuron looks like a tree in spring...with lots of branches and leaves extending toward synaptic connections with other neurons. What happens in depression is there's a shriveling of these branches and these leaves and it looks like a tree in winter."
After studying rat neurons before and after ketamine treatment, scientists have seen those neurons return to looking like a tree in spring, indicating that ketamine works by encouraging synaptic connections. 🎇
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