Ketamine and Pharmacological Imaging: Use of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to Evaluate Mechanisms of Action - Abstract
Sub-anesthetic ketamine infusion is the primary pharmacological model used to study schizophrenia and similar administration protocols of the drug are under investigation as a
treatment for depression and other psychiatric disorders. However, the mechanisms underlying
both the psychotomimetic and therapeutic effects of ketamine remain poorly understood. This
review provides an overview of what is known of the neural mechanisms underlying the effects
of ketamine and details what functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have revealed at
the systems-level. Multiple analysis techniques show that ketamine produces robust and consistent effects at the whole-brain level. These effects are highly conserved across primate species, validating the use of nonhuman primate models for further investigations with ketamine. Regional analysis of functional connectivity suggests that the therapeutic potential of ketamine may be derived from a strengthening of executive control circuitry, making it an intriguing candidate for the treatment of drug abuse. However, there are still many questions about ketamine that can be answered using current functional imaging techniques that have yet to be addressed.