Ketamine: general aspects and relationship with schizophrenia

Abstract

Ketamine is an anesthetic agent developed in 1965 by Park & Davis laboratories to be used as a general anesthetic in humans and animals. However, its use became popular among young people and it's frequently available at parties to produce hallucination. In laboratorial researches, this drug has been used as a model of schizophrenia in animals. This work intend to realize a review article about ketamine as an anesthetic and potential schizophrenia model, through a bibliographic research in sites of scientific research, as Pubmed, Medline, and Lilacs and some papers related to this subject. Ketamine administration in humans produces a blockage at glutamate N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, antagonizes nicotinic and muscarinic acetylcholine receptors, as well as opioids and monoaminergic systems. The blockage of glutamatergic receptors induces symptoms very similar to the ones presented by schizophrenic patients. Besides this, ketamine administration during synaptogenesis can injury cortical, limbic, thalamic and striatal neurons, producing a dysfunction in glutamatergic neurotransmission, leading to manifestation of psychotic symptoms during adult life. Among these symptoms, we can mention the development of schizophrenia. The drug also produces systemic effects that go from a simple anesthesia, sedation, respiratory depression until to death.