Skip to content
2000
Volume 12, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 1570-159X
  • E-ISSN: 1875-6190

Abstract

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a serious mental disorder that ranks among the major causes of disease burden. Standard medical treatment targeting cerebral monoamines often provides only insufficient symptom relief and fails in approximately every fifth patient. The complexity of MDD therefore, reflects more than monoaminergic dysregulation. Initial research argues the case for excessive glutamate levels, suggesting that antiglutamatergic drugs might be useful in treating MDD. Ketamine is a non-selective, high-affinity N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist most commonly used in pediatric and animal surgery. In the past, ketamine has gained popularity because of its ability to rapidly elevate mood, even in treatment-resistant and bipolar depression. However, there are still many obstacles before widespread clinical approval of ketamine treatment could become reality. In this review, ketamine’s powerful antidepressant effects are discussed and further research necessary for therapeutic application is outlined. NMDAR antagonists provide an entirely new way of treating the manifold appearances of depression that should not be left unused.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/cn/10.2174/1570159X113119990043
2014-01-01
2025-07-07
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/content/journals/cn/10.2174/1570159X113119990043
Loading

  • Article Type:
    Research Article
Keyword(s): Antidepressants; glutamate; ketamine; major depression; monoamines; NMDAR
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test