An update on ketamine and its two enantiomers as rapid-acting antidepressants

@article{Zhang2018AnUO,
  title={An update on ketamine and its two enantiomers as rapid-acting antidepressants},
  author={Kai Zhang and Kenji Hashimoto},
  journal={Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics},
  year={2018},
  volume={19},
  pages={83 - 92}
}
ABSTRACT Introduction: Depression is one of the most disabling diseases worldwide. Approximately one-third of depressed patients are treatment-resistant to the currently available antidepressants and there is a significant therapeutic time lag of weeks to months. There is a clear unmet need for rapid-acting and more efficacious treatments. (R,S)-ketamine, an old anesthetic drug, appears now to be going through a renaissance. Areas covered: This paper reviews recent literature describing the… 
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65 Citations

Rapid‐acting antidepressant ketamine, its metabolites and other candidates: A historical overview and future perspective
  • K. Hashimoto
  • Biology, Psychology
    Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences
  • 2019
TLDR
The author reviews the historical overview of the antidepressant actions of enantiomers of ketamine and its major metabolites norketamine and hydroxynorketamines and discusses the other potential rapid‐acting antidepressant candidates to compare them with ketamine.
Antidepressant Actions of Ketamine and Its Two Enantiomers
TLDR
Recent findings on the antidepressant actions of two enantiomers of ketamine are discussed, including (R,S), which has been reported to have a greater potency and longer-lasting antidepressant effects than (S)-ketamine in rodent models of depression.
Molecular mechanisms of the rapid-acting and long-lasting antidepressant actions of (R)-ketamine.
Ketamine as an antidepressant: overview of its mechanisms of action and potential predictive biomarkers
TLDR
An overview of ketamine with regard to pharmacology/pharmacokinetics, toxicology, the current state of clinical trials on depression, postulated antidepressant mechanisms and potential biomarkers for predicting response to and/or monitoring of therapeutic outcome with ketamine is provided.
Repurposing of Drugs-The Ketamine Story.
  • J. Das
  • Psychology, Biology
    Journal of medicinal chemistry
  • 2020
TLDR
Repurposing of ketamine for treating TRD provided a new understanding of the pathophysiology of depression-a paradigm shift from monoamine to glutamatergic neurotransmission, thus making it a unique tool to investigate the brain and its complex neurocircuitries.
Emergence of Ketamine as a Rapid Acting Antidepressant: Mechanistic Insights and Future Directions
TLDR
This chapter will shed light on the various mechanisms of ketamine related to antidepressant activity, its pharmacokinetics, toxicology and ongoing clinical trials will also be discussed.
An update on NMDA antagonists in depression
TLDR
The present review aims to summarize and provide an update on published preclinical data evaluating the antidepressant efficacy of various NMDA antagonists and their mechanisms of action based on published results from clinical studies.
Ketamine: Leading us into the future for development of antidepressants
Rapid-Acting Antidepressants.
TLDR
The preclinical and clinical literature strongly suggests that rapid-acting antidepressants are the current focus of antidepressant drug discovery, and promising clinical findings exist for several compounds including ketamine and other NMDA receptor antagonists, scopolamine, and psilocybin.
Rapid-acting antidepressants.
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