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Updated: Nov 9, 2025

Biomarkers in an Animal Model for Revealing Neural, Hematologic, and Behavioral Correlates of PTSD
Published on: October 10, 2012
Ketamine for post-traumatic stress disorders and it's possible therapeutic mechanism
Muhammad Asim1, Bing Wang2, Bo Hao3
1Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Department of Biomedical Science, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong; Faculty of Forensic Medicine, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China; Guangdong Province Translational Forensic Medicine Engineering Technology Research Center, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Abstract:
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a devastating medical illness, for which currently available pharmacotherapies have poor efficacy. Accumulating evidence from clinical and preclinical animal investigations supports that ketamine exhibits a rapid and persistent effect against PTSD, though the underlying molecular mechanism remains to be clarified. In this literature review, we recapitulate the achievements from early ketamine studies to the most up-to-date discoveries, with an effort to discuss an inclusive therapeutic role of ketamine for PTSD treatment and its possible therapeutic mechanism. Ketamine seems to have an inimitable mechanism of action entailing glutamate modulation via actions at the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) and α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid (AMPA) receptors, as well as downstream activation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathways to potentiate synaptic plasticity.
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