Research published today in eNeuro reports that low doses of ketamine promote resilience to future stressors just as well in female rats as they do in male rats. According to the paper from a team out of the University of Colorado, the research addresses a critical gap in understanding and developing treatments for stress-related disorders, which disproportionately afflict females.
Ketamine has been used for decades as an anesthetic and recreational drug and has only recently been studied for its rapid antidepressant effects that could benefit treatment-resistant patients. Most of the previously conducted studies have used only males.
Samuel Dolzani and colleagues found that female rats treated with low-dose ketamine one week prior to tail shock stress prevented the typical stress-induced decrease in social exploration, reflecting reduced anxiety-like behavior. Strikingly, low-dose ketamine female rats exhibited social exploration levels similar to those of control female rats that did not experience tail shock stress.
The mechanisms by which ketamine exerts prophylactic effects were also explored, and ketamine was found to activate an inhibitory prelimbic cortex-dorsal raphe nucleus circuit.