The cardiovascular effects of ketamine hydrochloride and thiopental sodium were studied in 11 dogs. During anesthesia, mean heart rate rose to 185 beats/min with ketamine and 147 beats/min with thiopental. Cardiac output was increased with ketamine but unchanged by thiopental. The maximum first derivative of the left ventricular pressure (dP/dt max) fell by 14% with thiopental but did not chang...

Ketamine produces rapid antidepressant-like effects in animal assays for depression, although the molecular mechanisms underlying these behavioral actions remain incomplete. Here, we demonstrate that ketamine rapidly stimulates histone deacetylase 5 (HDAC5) phosphorylation and nuclear export in rat hippocampal neurons through calcium/calmodulin kinase II- and protein kinase D-dependent pathways...

Ketamine hydrochloride is a well known general anesthetic and short acting analgesic in use for almost 3 decades. The role of the NMDA receptor in the processing of nociceptive input has led naturally to renewed clinical interest in N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists such as ketamine. This paper reviews the use and efficacy of low-dose ketamine in the management of acute postopera...

Ketamine and pregabalin each provide postoperative analgesia, although the combination has yet to be evaluated. One hundred and forty-two patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty were randomly assigned to receive ketamine alone, pregabalin alone, ketamine and pregabalin combined, or placebo. Pain scores at rest and on movement, morphine consumption, side-effects, pressure pain thresholds and ...

Long-term ketamine abuse has been shown to affect the lower urinary tract and result in interstitial cystitis-like syndrome. However, the causative mechanism of ketamine-induced dysfunction remains unclear. The present study aimed to investigate the physiological, histological and molecular changes on ketamine‑associated cystitis (KC) in a mouse model. Both male and female Balb/c mice were sepa...

Ketamine is a potent dissociative anesthetic and the most commonly used illicit drug. Many addicts are women at childbearing age. Although ketamine has been extensively studied as a clinical anesthetic, its effects on embryonic development are poorly understood. Here, we applied the Xenopus model to study the effects of ketamine on development. We found that exposure to ketamine from pre-gastru...

Ketamine has been reported to impair human cognitive function as a recreational drug of abuse. However, chronic effects of ketamine on central nervous system need to be further explored. We set out to establish chronic ketamine addiction models by giving mice a three or six month course of daily intraperitoneal injections of ketamine, then examined whether long-term ketamine administration indu...

Ketamine is an intravenous anesthetic agent often used for inducing and maintaining anesthesia. Cytoskeletons contribute to the regulation of hepatocyte activity of drug biotransformation. In this study, we attempted to evaluate the effects of ketamine on F-actin and microtubular cytoskeletons in human hepatoma HepG2 cells and its possible molecular mechanisms. Exposure of HepG2 cells to ketami...

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of different concentrations of ligustrazine, an extract from Chinese herb, on ketamine requirement for hypnosis and analgesia in mice. In the hypnotic response study, mice were randomly allocated to receive saline or ligustrazine at 10 mg·kg-1, 20 mg·kg-1, 40 mg·kg-1, 80 mg·kg-1 or 160 mg·kg-1 by intraperitoneal injection. Ketamine was admi...

Ketamine acts as an N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist and evokes psychotomimetic symptoms resembling schizophrenia in healthy humans. Imaging markers of acute ketamine challenge have the potential to provide a powerful assay of novel therapies for psychiatric illness, although to date this assay has not been fully validated in humans. Pharmacological magnetic resonance imaging (phMRI) wa...