Ketamine for the treatment of addiction: Evidence and potential mechanisms

Summary & key facts

This paper is a careful review of lab and human studies that looked at whether ketamine can help treat addiction. Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic that acts on brain receptors and has also been studied as a fast-acting antidepressant. The review finds some promising signs: in different studies ketamine helped some people stay off alcohol and heroin after detox, and it reduced craving and drug-taking in some cocaine users. But the research is still new and many studies have limits, so the authors say we need well-controlled trials to know for sure how well ketamine helps and why it might work.

Key facts:

• Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic that mainly works by blocking a brain receptor called NMDA, which affects how brain cells communicate.
• Researchers reviewed both animal and human studies that tested ketamine as a treatment for addiction.
• Some clinical studies found that ketamine helped prolong abstinence from alcohol in people who had already been detoxified.
• Some clinical studies found that ketamine helped prolong abstinence from heroin in people who had been detoxified.
• In studies with people who used cocaine but were not trying to get treatment, ketamine reduced craving and reduced how much cocaine people took in lab tests.
• The review lists several possible ways ketamine might help with addiction, including boosting the brain's ability to form new connections, easing depression, disrupting brain networks linked to craving, and weakening strong drug memories.
• The authors say the field is still young and many studies so far have important method limits, so stronger randomized and well-controlled trials are urgently needed.
• Because the evidence comes from different kinds of studies, we cannot yet be certain which people or which types of addiction ketamine will help most.

Topics

Psychedelics and Drug Studies Treatment of Major Depression Tryptophan and brain disorders

Categories

Clinical Psychology Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Abstinence Addiction Craving Dissociative Drug Epistemology Heroin Internal medicine Ketamine Mechanism (biology) Medicine Neuroscience NMDA receptor Pharmacology Philosophy Psychiatry Psychology Psychotherapist Receptor

Substances

Ketamine

Conditions & symptoms

Addiction Substance abuse disorder Addiction or harmful habbits