The bronchodilator effects of ketamine were examined in human bronchial preparations contracted maximally with histamine, acetylcholine, barium chloride or potassium chloride. Antagonism between ketamine and either histamine or acetylcholine was examined also. Ketamine caused bronchial relaxation irrespective of the constricting agent, and exerted a partial and non-competitive antagonism to his...

Ketamine is an N-methyl-D- aspartate antagonist with rapid antidepressant effects. Research shows that ketamine has a fast onset of reduction in depressive symptoms and shows sustained remission of suicidal ideation in some patients. This article provides a brief review of the literature on the use of ketamine for depression and in acute cases of suicidality. The authors conclude that, while fu...

When unrestrained cats were with ketamine 2-6 mg kg-1 i.v., anaesthesia was associated with seizure waves induced in the cortical e.e.g. After cats were pretreated with trimethadione 500 mg kg-1 i.p., ketamine did not induce seizure waves. Pretreatment with diphenylhydantoin 25 or 100 mg kg-1 i.p. slightly enhanced seizure waves following ketamine. In both situations the anaesthetic effect of k...

Background:Ketamine which is a short acting anaesthetic is also being used in night clubs and dance parties as a recreational drug. Its adverse effect on lower urinary tract, have been recently described by researchers. However, there is limited literature regarding the effects of ketamine on the urinary tract. Aims:To report our experience with ketamine related uropathy of bladder dysfunction,...

Objective(s): Fasted rodents treated with antimuscarinics develop convulsions after refeeding. Food deprivation for 48 hr produces changes in [3H]glutamate binding suggesting glutamatergic contribution to the underlying mechanism of the seizures that are somewhat unresponsive to antiepileptics. Studies in animals and epileptic patients yielded considerable information regarding the anticonvulsa...

BACKGROUND Administration of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonist ketamine during the perinatal period can produce a variety of behavioral and neuroanatomical changes. Our laboratory has reported reliable changes in learning and memory following a single dose of ketamine administered late in gestation. However, the nature of the drug-induced changes depends on the point during embryonic d...

Intravenous ketamine (0.5 mg/kg) produces robust, rapid and long-lasting antidepressant effects, but is unpractical. Sublingual administration of ketamine renders better bioavailability (~30%) and less conversion to norketamine than oral administration. We evaluated the therapeutic effects and tolerability of very low dose sublingual (VLDS) racemic ketamine (10 mg from a 100 mg/ml solution for ...

OBJECTIVE We aimed to probe for regional cerebral effects of S-ketamine on in vivo GABA-A-receptor binding in healthy human subjects. METHODS We investigated I-123-iomazenil SPECT before, during and after administration of S-ketamine in a blinded placebo-controlled study design (n = 12 in both groups). Analyses of SPECT were performed with voxel-based statistical parametric mapping (SPM), and...

The pharmacokinetics and analgesic effect of i.v. ketamine in doses of 125 microgram kg-1 and 250 microgram kg-1 were determined in five healthy volunteers. Analgesia was measured with the submaximal effort tourniquet test. Both doses of ketamine prolonged the period of pain-free ischaemic exercise while the plasma ketamine concentration was greater than 100 ng ml-1. Ketamine was distributed ra...

A subanesthetic dose of oral ketamine proved able to reduce chronic pain. These findings support the idea that norketamine, a metabolite of ketamine, may have played an important part in the analgesia observed in these chronic-pain patients,4 although we did not measure the plasma concentration of norketamine. We did not observe serious adverse events or tolerance to oral ketamine in the presen...