Ketamine
- Length: 208 pages
- Edition: 1
- Language: English
- Publisher: The MIT Press
- Publication Date: 2021-02-16
- ISBN-10: 0262542242
- ISBN-13: 9780262542241
- Sales Rank: #99652 (See Top 100 Books)
The emergence of ketamine–previously known as a combat anesthetic and club drug–as a treatment for depression.
Ketamine, approved in 2019 by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of depression, has been touted by scientists and media reports as something approaching a miracle cure. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series chronicles the ascent of a drug that has been around for fifty years–in previous incarnations, a Vietnam-era combat anesthetic and a popular club drug–that has now been reinvented as a treatment for depression. Bita Moghaddam, a leading researcher in neuropharmacology, explains the scientific history and the biology of ketamine, its clinical use, and its recently discovered antidepressant effects, for the nonspecialist reader.