Posted by AndrewB on September 23, 2000, at 13:28:17
In reply to Glutamate and dopamine confusion!, posted by anita on September 18, 2000, at 8:54:43
Anita,
Reading this post, your post to Scott and your other past posts- I can only shake my head. Something causes the dopaminergic action of meds to poop out on you and cause a rebound effect after awhile.
You ask about glutamte and dopamine. This brings up an interesting point and also points to a med that you may want to look into.
Ketamine is an NMDA antagonist. The NMDA is one of two receptors for glutamate.
Ketamine has been shown to have an antidepressant effect (Antidepressant effects of ketamine in depressed patients, Berman, Biol Psychiatry 2000, Feb 15).
Furthermore, and possibly related to this, ketamine directly inhibits reuptake of dopamine and enhances the spontaneous release of dopamine. Ketamine also has an indirect dopaminergic effect due to the prevention of hippocampal inhibitory effect on the nigrostriatal dopaminergic system by the blockade of NMDA receptors and L-glutamate transmission.
Note that ketamine is a scheduled drug and is abused in higher doses. It also has the legitimate use for anesthesia. But in much smaller doses it can be effective as an arousal agent and mood enhancer. Dr. Goldstein frequently uses ketamine with good results in the form of nasal spray for his CFIDS patients.
One person who uses ketamine in this form describes it as a mild stimulant, antidepressant, analgesic and cognition enhancer.
I would like to try ketamine nasal spray. I have to get my hands on some of it first though.
AndrewB
poster:AndrewB
thread:44865
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000905/msgs/45126.html