Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 22, 2026
Pupillary Response as Assessment of Effective Seizure Induction by Electroconvulsive Therapy
Published on: April 11, 2019
Effects of Ketamine on Pupillary Reflex Dilation: A Case Report
Sérgio Vide1, Catarina M Costa, Pedro L Gambus
1From the Department of Anesthesia, U.L.S.M., Matosinhos, Portugal; Center for Clinical Research in Anesthesiology, Department of Anesthesiology, Centro Hospitalar do Porto, Porto, Portugal; Systems Pharmacology Effect Control & Modeling (SPEC-M) Research Group, Anesthesiology Department, Hospital CLINIC de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; Neuroimmunology Research Program Institut de Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Barcelona, Spain; and Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California.
Abstract:
Ketamine is an important component of multimodal treatment and a commonly used anesthetic drug. However, its analgesic effects have not been fully assessed intraoperatively because of difficulties in measuring this effect. In this case report, a woman underwent general anesthesia with ketamine and its pupillary reflexes were measured to detect autonomic changes in response to pain. With increasing doses of ketamine, the pupillary light reflex and the pupillary dilation response decreased. This could be caused by N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonism in the pupillary reflexes pathway or by the analgesic effects of ketamine.
