Major depressive disorder takes at least 3 weeks for clinical anti-depressants, such as serotonin selective reuptake inhibitors, to take effect, and only one-third of patients remit. Ketamine, a kind of anaesthetic, can alleviate symptoms of major depressive disorder patients in a short time and is reported to be effective to treatment-resistant depression patients. The rapid and strong anti-depressant-like effects of ketamine cause wide concern. In addition to ketamine, caloric restriction and sleep deprivation also elicit similar rapid anti-depressant-like effects. However, mechanisms about the rapid anti-depressant-like effects remain unclear. Elucidating the mechanisms of rapid anti-depressant effects is the key to finding new therapeutic targets and developing therapeutic patterns. Therefore, in this review we summarize potential molecular and cellular mechanisms of rapid anti-depressant-like effects based on the pre-clinical and clinical evidence, trying to provide new insight into future therapy.
Keywords: depression; ketamine; neural circuit; rapid anti-depressant; synaptic plasticity.
© 2020 The Authors. Cell Proliferation Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.