Special K for depression

Well this sure sounds like a good plan to me… Scientists found out that Ketamine (also called Special K if you hang out with the right people), which is used as a horse tranquilizer but also as a club drug could ease depression. Who would have guessed ?Ketamine, which can also cause feelings of detachment, could pave the way for new treatments for people suffering from depression, the researchers added. This study was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry and it showed that the drug deals with the area of the brain which is responsable with guilt, dread, apprehension and physical reactions such as a racing heart.

“The study results have given us a completely novel way of treating depression and a new avenue of understanding depression,” said Deakin, a neuroscientist at the University of Manchester.

The study could proove to be very important, as depression is a leading cause of suicide and affects about 121 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation.The results were surprising because the researchers had expected that the ketamine would instead affect the part of the brain that controls psychosis, so the results are quite unexpected.