The use of ketamine as a potential treatment for PTSD
Project Author
Issue Date
2023-04-05
Authors
Jones, Liam
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First Reader
Bertholomey, Megan L.
Additional Readers
Clark, Rodney D.
Keywords
Ketamine , PTSD , post traumatic stress disorder , dissociative anesthetic , rodent , rat
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Abstract
Ketamine, a well known dissociative anesthetic, has recently been used for research in the psychiatric field, helping those with treatment resistant depression, and emerging studies have also focused on its ability to treat PTSD. The focus of this current study was to investigate the effect of ketamine on a rodent model in order to determine its effects and support it as an option for treatment. In order to test the effects of ketamine on PTSD, we first were required to induce a model of PTSD into all rats, by exposing them to an ethologically relevant stressor (predator odor:PO) while playing white noise as a discrete stimulus in the background in one chamber of a conditioned place preference (CPP) apparatus on the day following the conditioning, rats were injected with either 10 mg/kg ketamine or saline vehicle (i.p.). Then, rats were tested at 24 hours and 1 week post ketamine or vehicle administration. The rats were then observed to assess their freezing (lack of movement) and avoidance behavior(decreased time spent in po paired chamber), two behaviors that indicate the presence and severity of PTSD symptoms present. The results showed that the rats treated with the ketamine had a greater average decrease in the amount of freezing episodes from day 1 to week 1 post-treatment when initially exposed to the context and when exposed to the discrete stimulus. Results also indicate that when exposed to the discrete stimulus, there is a decrease in avoidance in reaction to the contextual stimuli from day 1 to week 1 post treatment. These results indicate that ketamine is an effective short term treatment for PTSD, but to further understand how effective it is we must investigate a more longitudinal study to see if multiple treatments of ketamine are necessary for total extinction of PTSD behavior.
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Neuroscience
Psychology
Psychology
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Neuroscience
Psychology
Psychology
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Honors
Psychology, 2023